


common tongue

by geniewish



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Blow Jobs, Christmas, Developing Relationship, English Setting, Eventual Smut, Hyungkyun, M/M, Religion, cynical millenial meets a church boi, future journalist hyungwon, merry late...xmas lads, mx are lads they drink like lads they live like lads, pls read until the end to see my antichrist joke, read a/n for more detailed warning, sciency nerd changkyun, side kihyuk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:01:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22225300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geniewish/pseuds/geniewish
Summary: “And so I stand here and preach for the whole world to hear, that I think your pseudo-commemoration ceremonies are wack. You all think roasting a turkey for dinner is your religious gratitude for the death of a ‘meek and mild’ son of God, but! It’s all a strategic game of capitalism to delude you into wasting money, think about it, you’re not giving––Oi, Changkyun! Hey, Changkyun, Changkyun, over here––What did you get me for Christmas?”Changkyun takes a second to think, then raises his palms up in the air and offers a little innocent smile. “Myself?”Hyungwon gulps, withholds a pause. One foot already sliding off the podium, he awkwardly bends towards the mic. “I’ll be right back.”(or how a cynical millennial meets a mysterious church boy and finds himself to be an almost-believer)
Relationships: Chae Hyungwon/Im Changkyun | I.M
Comments: 13
Kudos: 89





	common tongue

**Author's Note:**

> this was meant to be written for christmas but im a dumbass so heres almost 35k of a barely xmassy thingy
> 
> a warning!! there is a fair amount of criticism of religion, particularly christian celebrations, as well as use of christianity-related texts in one scene, as well as religious allegories to Not religious things, so if you're sensitive about such matters you might want to miss out on this fic!! i promise not the whole work is about that but there is definitely chunks of it.
> 
> this is inspired by a song by hozier - moment's silence (common tongue)!! please listen to it bc its good or at least check the lyrics because i do reference in one veri long scene where you will be able to tell from the start lmao but yeah!! the whole idea was taken from this song and thus why the use of xtianity as a theme
> 
> hope you enjoy nonetheless!!
> 
> edited 15.01. - thank you helena so much for beta-ing!! mistakes n typos have now been fixed)

Ah, yes, November. Everyone’s favourite time slot for a little capitalistic fun.

Christmas cards ravage the souvenir shelves, candy canes hang from the ceilings, advent calendars are already lined up in order of size, tinsels choke ancient columns outside the bookstores, Santa hats defile bald heads of pale mannequins, Christmas songs infestate the mind and conscience of poor passers-by, and mince pies – fucking mince pies – lie there unbothered in every single bakery display. Hyungwon could metaphorise about it all day long.

If only warm winter coats went on sale, that would be stellar.

Instead Hyungwon is forced to go through another – seventh – loop of _Santa Claus Is Coming to Town_ of the day. Seventh. Of the day. It’s only the middle of November, chill the hell out you absolute heathens, he wants to say. But he won’t, because he knows that once December comes round the corner, it will only get worse.

But the same exact song seven times in a row… that’s peak, to quote his coursemates. He thanks deities he doesn’t believe in for not letting Mariah Carey enter the scene yet. Hyungwon shivers just thinking about it. Or maybe he shivers only because some men that shamelessly stumble onto the streets are absolutely ignorant about the stench they leave behind. 

But, well, enough of these useless complaints. The day is still young.

As Hyungwon accompanies his younger brother on the way home from elementary school, he tries his best to distract him with chats about everything and nothing at the same time just so the poor child, god forbid, doesn’t look at all those damned colourful Christmas fairy tale books displays.

He shouldn’t even spell Christmas as ‘Christmas’ anymore at this point. It’s Xmas now. With an X. Huge, red, bloody cross sprayed graffiti-style all over the entire concept of this disgraceful celebration. 

“So your Maths teacher didn’t even notice there was a wet stain on the chair?” Hyungwon asks, incredulous. 

“No!” Hoseok giggles, light and angelic. He’s got a big black gap instead of his front teeth (that will hopefully grow again sometime soon). “She’s got a big bottom!”

Hyungwon looks ahead of him and raises his eyebrows. “Cool.” Hoseok bites into his pastry with cute chomping sounds, and it’s quiet between them for another second. “Wait, how big?”

Hoseok snickers, crumbs falling on his scarf. “Huge!” He lilts. 

“But how huge? Like, our grandma-huge, or, like, Vernon Dursley-huge?” Hyungwon asks with notes of laughter at the end of his sentence, funny images flooding his mind. He probably shouldn’t pry this eight-year-old kid about such piquant details, but he genuinely was too invested in the story. 

“Like,” Hoseok glances around, “like Santa-huge!”

Oh, no, here it comes. “Ugh,” Hyungwon doesn’t resist a passive-aggressive sigh, to which Hoseok only giggles again. Hyungwon smiles at the sound. 

_Wake up, people of the town, wake up. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got business or thousands of followers on Instagram, maybe you’ve got all the games in the world, but that will not matter in a hundred years’ time. The only thing that will matter is, where are you going when you die? The only thing that will matter is, what did you do with this decision of the Christ, Jesus, who laid on the cross for sinners. Did you reject him? What will you do with your grave? I want to tell you that Jesus will be your grave._

Hyungwon puts his hand on the back of Hoseok’s head and carefully leads him away from the street preacher, unconsciously walking faster to get further away from this religious cacophony.

“Did you like our perfor–performance?” Hoseok stutters, a trait that seems to be biologically inherited in their family. 

“Well, the song choice is atrocious,” Hyungwon jokes but smiles, knowing that Hoseok will laugh as well. “But you are the star, so it doesn’t matter.”

“So I sing good?”

“Well, sing well. And of course, you are a talented little gremlin,” he says softly.

Hoseok’s jaw goes slack and he looks up with massively offended eyes. “Hey! I’m not a gremlin.” He pouts, and Hyunwon sighs again - at himself this time. He keeps forgetting that children don’t recognise banter at such a tender age. 

“I didn’t mean it like that! I only meant that you’re cute, like a house elf? Excuse my poor choice of lexicon.” 

“Lexi-what?” Hoseok asks, frowning in suspicion.

“Lexicon, uh, words.” Another thing Hyungwon tends to forget is Hoseok’s limited vocabulary, which is amazing for a Year 4 kid, but also immensely inconvenient for long discussions.

Hoseok clicks his tongue. He picked it up from Hyungwon. “You are a gremlin. Grinch, that’s what you are!”

Hyungwon wails on the inside. “When have I ever destroyed your Christmas?” He exclaims, deeply offended. 

Hoseok rolls his eyes. He definitely picked it up from Hyungwon. “The right word would be ‘stole’! Stole Christmas! Even I know the film.” Hyungwon knows the exact reference he should’ve made and he recognises his grand failure to his younger brother, but he couldn’t crush his dignity like that. 

“Oi, I’m older than you, don’t argue with me.” Hyungwon is obviously joking again, but Hoseok gives him an adorable stink eye from under his big cashmere hat. It even has a red fluffy pom pom on the end.

“Dad is older than you.” Well, he can’t argue with that.

Hoseok’s dad is lovely, actually. He is an IT assistant in a local store but is pretty educated in other areas too; drinks even more coffee than Hyungwon and loves to design random PowerPoint layouts when insomnia hits every once in a while. Hyungwon was a pretty insufferable kid when his stepfather moved in with his mum, thirteen, hormonal, stupid and constantly wavering between the stages of creepling anxiety and insubstantial narcissism, but he managed to love him anyways. When Hoseok was born, Hyungwon learned to appreciate his new father a whole genuine lot more. And, well, he is an amazing cook too. 

“Papa, we’re home!” Hoseok exclaims as soon as Hyungwon opens the front door and hurriedly kicks off his shoes and throws his jacket on the floor. 

“Oi, aren’t we supposed to hang our stuff carefully?” Hyungwon scolds timidly, clicking his tongue, and picks up all the discarded clothes and Hoseok’s school backpack. He doesn’t like studying, he is a child of music, and arts, and friendships, and all the things good and wholesome, like a Hufflepuff. 

Hyungwon walks into the living room and catches his brother nuzzling his dad on the sofa, cold chubby cheeks pressed against the older man’s. Hyungwon waves from where he stands the doorway with a polite smile, “Hi, Jongwon,” and retreats into the kitchen.

“Ah, Hyungwon!” The man shouts after him, and before Hyungwon can turn around, his dad is already waddling into the kitchen with a happy Hoseok skipping in step. “What are you doing later today, son?”

He frequently refers to him as that. Hyungwon doesn’t mind, but then he can’t help but paint Jongwon as a secretly scheming mafia boss from some 90’s romcom-thriller, in which the protagonists gets fooled by his second half’s seemingly sweet dad, who is actually the head of a huge corporation in charge of all evils in the society they live in and – and Hyungwon has no idea how he got this image painted in his head. 

He shrugs. “Just going back to uni or my accomodation to study.”

“Not staying for dinner then?” Jongwon opens the fridge and gets out a couple of containers.

“No, don’t think so,” Hyungwon pouts, because that makes him look sweet and apologetic, and, what’s to hide, he genuinely feels that way. Hoseok copies his expression with a sad chubby pout of his own. 

“Could I ask you a favour then?” Hyungwon knew what the favour was about the moment Jongwon took the containers out, but he nods anyways and springs up like a polite kid he is. A six-foot-tall twenty-two-year-old, but nevertheless a kid to his parents. “Could you bring your mother the dinner I made? She’s staying for the night shift again.”

Hyungwon takes the containers with another polite smile. “No problem at all, I’ll come say hi.” Jongwon thanks him and starts rummaging around for a plastic bag. Hyungwon rolls his eyes in good nature – the man just wouldn’t stop forgetting about the existence of the plastic bag full of plastic bags in the plastic bag pile next to the rubbish bin under the sink. 

But Jongwon eventually sorts himself out and sends Hyungwon on his way. He kisses Hoseok’s cheeks before leaving and steps back into the world of loathsome and vile Christian corruption. 

_Can you give me two minutes of your time to think about this man, Jesus? The Bible says, without the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness of sins, and this Christ, Jesus, he bled and died on the cross and he shed his blood on that cross, so you could be forgiven. For all the times you’ve lied, for all the times you’ve had sex outside of marriage, for all the times you’ve got drunk, for all the times you’ve lived your own life – Jesus Christ was nailed to that cross and––”_

Hyungwon rolls his eyes so hard he almost loses his balance and pushes his way down their town’s high street to get away from this noisy nonsense. The louder they speak, the more he is tempted to lie, fuck, get smashed and smack someone in the face, but he’s got a bag with food containers in one hand for his mum and a laptop case in his backpack for his degree, and so he turns the music louder and speedwalks to the bus stop. 

God forbid he lets his mum starve at work because of his incurable cynicism. 

But he gets to the hospital safe and sound, smiles sweetly at the receptionist that’s known him for years now, and starts an idle chat with her while waiting for his mother to come down.

“Yeah, the semester is nearing the end, and so am I, to be fair,” Hyungwon jokes, which Gina doesn’t really seem to get. “Don’t think I’ve ever had so many deadlines in one month. A couple more days, and my mum will be the one to tend for me.” Hyungwon releases a little laugh, because he completely forgot receptionist Gina doesn’t like dark humour and despises death allegories. But she works in the hospital, don’t people die in here?

“Ah, bless you,” she says with a sympathetic smile, and Hyungwon has to contain a twitch of annoyance. She always says that. She just wouldn’t stop saying that. “What are you guys doing for Christmas?”

The thing is, Hyungwon is a very nice guy. He is extremely respectful to people around him, would never be rude to a stranger, always smiles and has impeccable manners; some would even say he is too lethargic to be true. But hell knows it’s because he pours all his frustrations out on video games and, well, in their Public Speaking society. His little (but lovely) piece-of-shit friends also help him with occasional reality checks. Bless them.

“Don’t know,” and so the frustration has already started filling his daily vessel (planted inside him specifically for frustration) to the brim. “Shouldn’t be anything special, probably just whatever everyone else is doing,” he ends with a polite smile. In his definition, it’s getting desperately wasted with his mates, but Gina probably thinks a nice family dinner and presents, and he is not angry enough to ruin that for her.

“That’s sweet. Ah, there she is.”

God bless.

“Hyungwonnie!” His mother quickly shuffles across the waiting room with a smile on her face. Hyungwon opens his arms to engulf the little woman in a hug. “Haven’t seen you in ages.”

“Ah, I apologise for not calling, deadlines been looming over my head like storm clouds. Here,” he extends a bag with food, “Jongwon made dinner. You staying for another night shift?”

His mother excitedly looks inside the bag as she accepts it. “Japchae! And kimbap again, do you think he will ever stop making kimbap?” She curves her eyebrows, obviously joking, and Hyungwon does the same, smiling. He definitely inherited this from her, forehead wrinkles, that is. 

“He forgot where we keep a stash of plastic bags again, so I don’t think he’s curable.” His mother laughs and touches his arm fondly. Sometimes it’s nice being an adult. 

“What are you doing this Christmas, Miyeon?” Gina asks again. Bloody Gina.

“Ah, probably nothing special! Hoseokkie’s participating in a school play, so we will come to support him.” Hyungwon’s mother replies, friendly as ever. The performance is days before Christmas, but she doesn’t need to mention that. 

“That is so sweet, best of luck for him. I was thinking,” Gina starts again, “our local church is doing a small carol service next week, and I was thinking we could gather all our staff a little early since we’re all working the entire Advent. Wanna come?”

The thing is, Hyungwon is a very nice guy. He is extremely respectful of people around him, would never be rude to a stranger, always smiles and has impeccable manners; some would even say he is too lethargic to be true. But so is his mum, and he thinks that were their society just a little less focused on politeness, they both would snap a long time ago. Except, his mum genuinely loves her colleagues (and people in general) and wouldn’t refuse an invitation to hang out. Even if it’s happening in a church, of all places. 

“Sounds lovely!” Hyungwon’s mother says, smiling.

“Make sure to bring your husband,” Gina smiles, and Miyeon laughs. 

“I’ll make sure to bring this insufferable rascal too,” she says, pinching Hyungwon’s cheek. He musters a lovely smile and tries to look as polite as he can. His mother is too nice to understand the concept of a cynical millennial. 

And then they ask why his generation is so angry about everything in the world. 

There is a lot of things Hyungwon has a problem with. The air is polluted to the point people in China can’t breathe without masks on. The ocean is contaminated, and all these charity organisations gather money for their mercenary goals. The animals are going extinct, take pandas and turtles - turtles! - and gorillas and rhinos and even tigers. The economy's collapsed, and all these billionaires can’t even give five percent of their unsanctioned earnings to homeless shelters. Education is wack, kids are forced to admire lunatics like Plato and Kant, and completely disregard the good side of things that Napoleon and Lenin did. Police are going corrupt, and innocent people are being targeted for the colour of their skin. Celibate priests defile their young followers and then preach that gay sex is a sin. Homosexuality is still illegal in most countries in the world, and human traffickers still think human trafficking is okay. Marginalised people committ suicide because someone’s authority is telling them their existence is invalid. Everything in the world is done for profit, everything, every little thing. Passionate, fresh-out-uni young people can’t get employed because they refuse to work in unethical fast food chain restaurants and are forced to succumb to the pains of unpaid freelance. Trump is a president. Women are still considered as sexual objects for bigots like him. Brexit. Tesco’s self-checkout machines don’t ask if you want a receipt, they print out the receipt no matter what and waste more paper than needed. Forests are burning, not only Amazonian. Climate change is real, and ice caps are melting, and there is this wide river running across London that has a great potential of one day flooding his little brother’s home. Polythene plastic bags are still in production, and Hyungwon held one in his hands just now. 99% of human beings don’t have basic decency, act like absolute scums of the earth and disrespect everyone who is just a tiny bit different from a textbook example of a male. Baseball. Late night talk-shows are still a thing, Kardashians are still multimillionaires, US troops are still ravaging Syria, rape porn is still legal, farm animals are still killed mercilessly, and Nazi parties still gather supporters.

And Christmas music keeps playing on loop in every single store he enters, in the middle of fucking _November_. 

And perhaps Hyungwon is a little too concerned with insignificant things, such as unending iPhone models that keep getting released every damn September, and stupid films that just won’t stop flooding Netflix, and perhaps he is too busy succumbing to the truths of a capitalist society to really do anything about issues that actually harm the entire planet and all the innocent humans on it (his brother, for example), but, hey, he’s already got a start. 

He is the vice-president of the Public Speaking society in his university. He speaks in public. And he speaks a _lot_. 

“God commanded genocide in the Old Testament multiple times. He condones slavery, rape, injustice, and there are only two accounts in the OT written from a woman’s perspective? And it describes all of those things? And then you ask me why I stand by feminism with my body and soul. And on top of that, why would I trust the teaching that invalidates my entire existence and damns me to hell for being born. I’ve never raised a hand on another person, I’ve never cheated – but I’m also not married, so I suppose some might call this point as invalid as my existence – I’ve never stolen and I’ve never been abusive to anyone ever in my life – unless we consider verbally violent banter with my best friend as such, but my point stands: I consider myself a good man, and yet, according to all your preachers, I should be damned or tortured in a mental institution for having a diverse liking in humans. And I know this has been said multiple times before me, and I know there are some Christians who accept both religion and their queerness, but this is not something I can ever accept. As I said, this is only a part of the problem, but I’m only given two minutes to present my argument, evidenceless but full of burning fury of a man faced with oppression, so here it is. And for hell’s sake, please stop asking me what I’m doing for Christmas, I told you, I’m getting blackout drunk to forget this celebration is a thing.”

When Hyungwon comes down from the podium, he sticks his tongue out and sighs as if all the weight of the world has suddenly fallen on his shoulders. Kihyun scrunches his face to the point of unrecognition and cackles at him. 

“Did ye only gang up there today jist tae say that one lest thing?” He asks through a spurt of laughter and slaps Hyungwon’s arm. 

“I’m so tired of hearing that damn word everywhere, Christmas this, Christmas that, Christmas then, Christmas when, like, fucking hell, chill out, it’s only November,” Hyungwon rubs his forehead and slumps. He is not having a really good day – the deadlines are pressuring, and he’s still got another three thousand words to write due in two days. He is not usually like that, not usually this stressed out and horrible with time management, but hell knows he hates this celebration season, and it makes him sick. 

They stay in the room to watch other members of their society perform, and then speedwalk to the cafeteria to get dinner or, well, some sort of dinner. There is a decent selection of sandwiches, paninis and burgers, and they don’t really need more than that–– 

Kihyun brought food from home.

Hyungwon doesn’t really need more than that. 

“Have ye decided on yer dissertation topic yit?” Kihyun asks, cheeks full. 

Hyungwon gives him the stinkiest eye he could possibly muster. “I am on the verge of hanging myself on a Christmas tree with my poor excuse of an International Politics essay, and you’re asking me if I am ready to write the work that will define this whole decade of my youth.”

Kihyun grimaces again, pitiful look on his face as he chews on his rice. “You’re all words an’ nae substance. I’m thinkin’ of doin’ either modern-day dictatorship in North Korea or criticism of currently employed Refugee Laws in Australia, somethin’ like that.” Kihyun honestly didn’t have to provide any of this information, but he loves showing that he is doing better than Hyungwon in at least some aspects of his life and that he’d die if he doesn’t praise himself in front of him.

“Mm.” Then Hyungwon grins subtly at the lame retort he’s planning in his head and tries to swallow it down. “I’m thinking of writing a brochure on justification of my sudden violent urges to smother my best friend, but I have a suspicion it won’t get published for the life of me.” Hyungwon chews on a piece of lettuce from the sandwich while casually flipping a paper in his textbook. 

“I’ve ne’er raised a hain on anither person, he said,” Kihyun recalls Hyungwon’s own words and quirks a brow, not raising his eyes from his own journal. 

“God damn it, Yoo Kihyun, stop copying everything I say, you might get expelled for plagiarism.” Hyungwon rolls his eyes, because he always rolls his eyes, and it’s a habit he can’t quite get rid of. 

“They hated him ‘cause he told them the truth…” Kihyun sighs dramatically and flicks a grain of rice on Hyungwon’s book.

He raises his eyes. “That’s it, Yoo Kihyun, you detonated the bomb.” Hyungwon rips a piece of bread from his sandwich and tosses it at his friend. Granted, it lands on a fold on his shirt, and Kihyun’s face is nothing short of scandalised. Hyungwon snorts and flushes before laughter erupts from within him.

“Ye puny pea-brained chookie! This is a new shirt!” Kihyun exclaims. 

“No, it’s not! You still got a stain on the sleeve from that recreational art class you took last summer!” Hyungwon exclaims back, almost snorting again.

Kihyun’s eyes narrow. “Watch it, twally, I went there fur Minhyuk.”

Hyungwon narrows his eyes too. “Okay, you wanker, no need to justify yourself so hard.”

Kihyun sits still for a moment, dumb impenetrable pout on his face, and then swings his hand across the table and sends Hyungwon’s book and water bottle flying onto the floor. “Boggin’ bastard.”

With a groan, Hyungwon slumps in his seat. “Kihyu-u-u-un, don’t be such a dickhead,” he whines. 

Kihyun scrunches his forehead again, snorting. “Pick up yer shite, mate.”

Hyungwon shakes in his seat like a capricious child and whines some more. But he is a courteous man, so he wiggles out of his seat and bends down to pick up his book.

Somewhere between putting his hand on the cover and almost losing his balance, Hyungwon looks up, just for the sake of noting how many people have witnessed their little fight. Instead, his gaze falls on a figure a good distance away, walking away from the cafeteria into the depth of their university building. Huge white trainers is all Hyungwon really distinguishes, but as he raises his head and trails his eyes along slim-fit jeans and a massive puffy jacket, he meets someone else’s gaze, directed right at him. 

Hooded lids and a dull glint of boredom is all Hyungwon receives before the unfamiliar guy turns away and continues going about his own business, but Hyungwon finds himself a little frozen. There was this brilliant paragraph in _The Great Gatsby_ where Nick just goes off about Gatsby’s smile for an eternity and a half, and if only Hyungwon’s memory was good enough, he would totally copy the obscure words of the genius. There wasn’t anything particularly stunning about that random guy. In fact, he seemed rather sharp and unconventional, but the dull glint of boredom was also a little bit dreamy, languid, like the carelessness he carried himself with was due to some metaphysical high than deceptive pomposity. 

And it was only two seconds. The eye contact lasted two miserable seconds, and here Hyungwon finds himself bent over the chair in the middle of the university cafeteria with a half-raised book in his hand, contemplating the meaning of his life. 

“Oi, ye alright there, bawbag?” Kihyun’s voice reaches him through a veil of wordless fantasy he just weaved for himself, and when he finally straightens again, his face is flushed from being in a downturned position for hell knows how long. “Whit, saw the loove ay yer life or somethin’?”

Hyungwon blinks. “Or something,” he utters cryptically. He shakes his head to chase away the strange impending feeling and bites into his sandwich again. 

The thing about Hyungwon, he thinks too much. There is constant noise at the back of his head, and on the front of his lobe too, and spread all along the walls of his skull as well. There is too much noise, every day, every second, and even when he tries to shake the thoughts away, they don’t leave.

A guy from his Global Journalism class passes by, laughing obnoxiously loud and disturbing the evening peace, his jeans cuffed, his snapback Nike, his trainers Fila, his jacket thin and oversized and definitely not suitable for this atrocious weather, and Hyungwon believes it’s because of guys like him that girls like that girl in the corner with her notes all spread out and glasses slipping off her nose, can’t form loving trusting bonds with these fashionable condescending males. It’s because of men like that baseball-loving creep on the table nearby that Hyungwon sometimes looks around warily when sitting down so his bag doesn’t stolen or so he doesn't read news about campus shooting in the news the next morning. Because these chavs overfill the bins, which are clearly-evidently split into recycling and general waste, these poor cleaners have to sort everything out because that’s the job they’ve taken to feed their families, and, honestly, if only those bastards knew how to be decent and sort, their, fucking, rubbish, out, they would be surprised how much such little things help on a much bigger scale. 

And it’s also because of people like Kihyun that Hyungwon loses his mind every once in a while. He bloody loves his best friend, he is the coolest person ever, very intelligent (in academics, and only sometimes), mildly funny (it might just be the Scottish slang that makes him funnier and not his humour in itself), he is rather good-looking, depending on the angle, and he is, indeed, very hardworking (too much for Hyungwon’s liking, but what can he say). He must admit that Kihyun does have a horrendous sense of style, acts disgusting at the table – the twit is twenty-two years old and still talks with his mouth full! – brags too much about himself, and thinks that if he smiles sweetly at his prof he’d get away with everything in the world, even murder (and, sadly, he does). But, in all honesty, despite all his imperfections and short stubby legs and a piece of lettuce stuck in his teeth as he is smiling at Hyungwon while talking about his amazing Nuclear Age essay grade, Kihyun is overall a braw lass, as he himself likes to say. He is so kindhearted, and he is so nice and polite to those he loves and respects (excluding Hyungwon, but that’s just bants), and he would never refuse to do a favour, and loves animals almost more than people, which is just endearing and very valid, and he is the best person to grab a beer or two, extremely fun to hang out and be silly with, and most of all, he is honest without exception, and he will not tolerate bullshit from anyone, including Hyungwon (probably the only thing Hyungwon is included in), and this exceptional honesty, as much as it sometimes irritates the shit out of him, does make Hyungwon a better person––

“I’m gonna spend the weekends with my boyf, whit abit ye?” Kihyun drops his phone on the table and leans back in his seat, a nasty smile curling in the corners of his mouth.

––But the mostest of all, Kihyun is a 5”8 piece-of-shit little mousy boy whose goal in life is to make Hyungwon suffer. And maybe that’s why there is so much useless white noise buzzing at the back of Hyungwon’s head every day, filling the silence that could’ve been filled by someone much more pleasant. 

And I’m going to hang myself on a Christmas tree to avoid going to the carol service in Gina’s church, Hyungwon bitterly thinks. 

“Yeah, and he went like, ‘sorry babe had this work opening couldn’t come need sleep not like it mattered anyways’, like, hell yeah it does? What gives you the right to just neglect me like that and cast me aside after I had your fucking dick in my mouth, honestly,” Jooyeon says, stuffing her mouth with fries. 

Hyungwon grimaces so hard he wants to gag. “Dickhead.” He slurps his milkshake, folds on his forehead growing deeper and deeper. “Are you sure you want to sleep with him?”

Jooyeon shrugs. “I mean, I have been pining after him for three months. But, dude, relax, I’m not emotionally attached or anything,” she breathes out, like Hyungwon is an overbearing nanny trying to set his child on the right path. 

“Or anything,” Hyungwon copies, chewing the rest of his burger. He is a man of principles, meaning that if he detests the work policies of all fast food chain restaurants, he wouldn’t set a food near them. Which is why he is already regretfully waving goodbye to his wallet as Jooyeon orders another shake in this authentic burger place Hyungwon drags his friends to and promises to pay for them just so they don’t have to go to Maccies again. Needless to say all his friends go a little mercilessly on the offer. 

“Listen,” Jooyeon whines. “It’s just gonna be a fling – if he pulls through, which he better, because I’ve already embarrassed myself enough leaving him hanging in the work toilet – but also one might say it’s a good thing, because now he’s bound to be desperate, which means it will be a mutually beneficial hookup, so I won’t have to feel like a slut, and – ah, shit, I hate myself,” Jooyeon sighs with a pitiful expression on her face, a lousy sort of smile spreading through the pout. “Hyungwo-o-o-o-on, what am I gonna do-o-o-o-o,” she whines some more. 

Hyungwon clears his throat before speaking, because it’s nearing the end of November, he is bloody freezing, and his rhinitis is driving him insane with all the dust floating in the wind. “You know what I think,” he wipes his hands and crumbles the napkin on an empty plate. “I worked in _Shidae’s Dosirak_ , you know what I think of all those people and why I quit. Seriously, the amount of times I had to witness them check out new female staff like absolute perverts high-key drove me insane. Including you, Joo-joo,” Hyungwon twitches his eyebrows, highlighting his point. “I’ve never met this Minwoo fella, but you know how shithead both of the Jo’s get when it comes to spicy gossip. Didn’t Hyunseong get fired because he slept with one of the managers?”

Jooyeon nods with wide eyes, memory of such an incident still making her go a little bonkers. “For real, but he was such a prick about it as well, like calling in sick just to go on holiday with Jihyun, like, bitch, please, we all knew what were you up to.”

“See,” Hyungwon’s eyebrows jerk again. “I don’t want to prevent you from having fun, if that’s what you wanna do with him, but I also don’t want you to be in pain just because of all those bastards at work. It will be nothing to him, and all the giggles will fall on you.” Hyungwon swallows the last of his milkshake and presses his lips in a consolidating flat smile. “The kind of world we live in.”

Jooyeon pouts, bitter. “Like, I know you are right, but I also don't wanna deprive myself of some fun just because my colleagues are dickheads. Ugh,” she sighs in exasperation now, still pouting, and Hyungwon huffs a silent laugh at her antics. 

“It will always be up to you, depending on whether you deem the fun worthy of later suffering, but don't forget, they might not necessarily find out.” He gestures at the waiter for the bill. 

“Oh, trust me, they will, I saw one of them winking at Minwoo after we reappeared from the toilet together.”

Hyungwon offers another neutral smile. “It’s all up to you then, you know what I think, I can’t influence your decision any further.”

“You’re such a fucking political journalist, aren’t you tired of being The Guardian?” Jooyeon gives him another piteous look-over as he gets out his card to pay for the meal. “Don’t you ever just wanna go Daily Mail?”

Hyungwon imitates gagging sounds so well he feels like gagging for real. “I’d rather sing a Christmas carol than hold a Daily Mail in my hands.”

Jooyeon immediately narrows her eyes in suspicion. “Isn’t the church thing today? The one your mother is dragging you to?”

Hyungwon should probably stop imitating gross bodily reactions because he is starting to get actually sick. “Don’t rub any more salt in, I’m already feeling dizzy.”

“Where is it?”

“Just outside the centre, near mum’s hospital.”

“Hold on,” Jooyeon musters a pensive expression, cocking her head to the side as if she realised something scientifically inexplicable. “That’s where my cousin lives, I told you about him, he sings in the choir sometimes? Or used to, at least, when he was a kid.”

Hyungwon’s lips swirl into a tube. “Joo-joo-joo-joo-joo-joo-something.”

“Yeah, him,” Jooyeon cheerfully says with a smile. 

“Well, guess I’ll pop by to say hello.” Hyungwon rolls his eyes, pulling a jacket over his shoulders. 

“He looks like a dumpling, in case you need a visual image. I mean, he might not anymore, I haven’t seen him in ages, but he might still have chubby cheeks,” they both get up from their seats, and Hyungwon takes Jooyeon’s coat to politely help her drag it up her arms.

“I think I’m good, it shouldn’t be too hard to spot another Korean in a church, of all places.” They leave the restaurant together, wishing all the workers a good day, and step out into the terrible-terrible November afternoon. 

“Alright, have fun,” Jooyeon stretches and waves him as her feet have already began to take her in the opposite direction from the bus stop. 

“See you soon, yeah?” Hyungwon shouts back, and Jooyeon sticks her tongue out. He sighs and goes on about his own day.

_Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive them that trespass against us; And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. Amen._

After a torturously long hour, they finally stand up to sing the final hymn. Hyungwon pointedly doesn’t take the book, to which his mother elbows him on the side, and curves his spine to stand out less among the rather short elderly masses. He experiences a lot of shame on the daily basis – when he answers a question wrong in class, when his ankle twists as he hops down the stairs, when he eats alone in the cafeteria and crumbs fall on his lap and he just know that someone was looking at him right at that very moment; when he leaves an unknown student accommodation after a one-time fling in the middle of the night and there are some late owls playing pool by the main reception that don’t even need to second-guess why he is suddenly running to get a taxi; when a cashier asks him if he is paying by cash or card, and he says ‘yeah’, because he only hears ‘card’, and then the cashier has to ask the question again like Hyungwon is an idiot. 

Hyungwon knows what shame is, but nothing has ever made him feel such a strong desire to be swallowed by the earth’s core than the moment he took a seat in the church pews along with his family, skinny blonde head towering over the world under the painted dome, and he felt exposed, heavy, on fire. He has nowhere to hide, for twisting around meant casting his black demon eyes on the rest of the pious crowd, and all he could do was turn his sinner’s face to the priest and listen to the exorcism spells. 

_Love divine, all loves excelling,  
Joy of heaven to earth come down;  
Fix in us thy humble dwelling;  
All thy faithful mercies crown!  
Jesus, Thou art all compassion,  
Pure unbounded love Thou art;  
Visit us with Thy salvation;  
Enter every trembling heart._

They all sing, even his mother, who knows a total number of zero service hymns, and Hyungwon just tries to breathe in tune to the organ and count the minutes until the torture is over. If this is the heaven they promise in the end time, then he is happy there is already a place reserved for him in hell. Hopefully. 

_The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore. Amen._ Oh, so holy they are.

“Amen, let’s go, let’s go,” Hyungwon exclaims and nudges his mother to move out of the pews. She gives him a disapproving look.

“Why, there are refreshments at the back, I’d like me a cup of tea. Ah, Gina!”

Hyungwon rolls his eyes so hard he almost loses his balance. His parents take Hoseok away to the refreshments table, and Hyungwon is left to his own autonomy. He would go outside for a smoke and wait for them in the safety of sinner streets, but his mother doesn’t know he does such atrocities, and it’s also bloody freezing. 

So, he finally gathers the courage to look around this Anglican monstrosity and potentially find Jooyeon’s advertised choir boy cousin. He better be a decent person. 

The pious crowd is buzzing, flattering each other in sacred tongues and common misconceptions. Every polite smile thrown in his direction Hyungwon returns with his own, but he secretly hopes no one approaches him for the life of him. 

His mother is chatting with her colleagues, Hoseok is stealing sweets from the table, Jongwon desperately feels out of place, and in the limelight of golden Latin words and heavenly sceneries on the walls, Hyungwon feels a heavy gaze of someone’s eyes on him. Under the choir balcony that extends to the middle of the church, there is a figure that Hyungwon on some unknown instincts deems familiar. 

Right. The Gatsby eyes. The look so dreamy it had taken Hyungwon seven thousand years to pick up a book Kihyun shoved on the floor a few days ago.

And now the stranger’s massive trainers are stomping the unsullied floor of the spuriously sinless church.

A sudden confusion about how the guy in a dark snakeskin jacket isn’t setting ablaze inside the house of god pops at the back of Hyungwon’s head, and he looks onto the old carpet between the pews, making sure it is not sizzling with uncommenced fire. Strange. Even though the unfamiliar guy has long turned to the cooler to fill himself a cup of water, Hyungwon still feels a sting on his skin from the glance of molten eyes. This metaphor makes no sense, but Hyungwon is getting there. 

He feels weirdly magnetised. Like there is something pulling him to the stranger, like the glance of enigmatic lazy eyes had some kind of supernatural power, like the feeling he gave Hyungwon was… temptation. 

Or maybe his cognitive apparatus processed the possibility of that little dude being Jooyeon’s cousin, and his instincts are telling him to go say hi because he never goes back on his promises. Hyungwon is a man of principles after all.

He doesn’t look like a dumpling, the stranger, but Jooyeon did confess that she hasn’t seen him in hell knows how long, so Hyungwon sighs, shakes his limbs, tries on his polite smile, and approaches the guy of his relentless ponderings. 

Instead of tapping him on the shoulder, Hyungwon curls down and tries to get into his line of sight. “Hey, sorry I never got your name, but you are Jooyeon’s cousin, right?”

The guy turns around and looks at him with eyes slightly wider than what Hyungwon has seen before. He is pretty cute up close. The guy detaches the plastic cup from his lips and quickly licks over them before speaking. Oh, he is cute-cute, Hyungwon briefly concludes. 

“Jooheon?” The guy’s voice hits Hyungwon with a slap on his cheek. It’s deep, almost scarily so, as if it’s coming from the depth of… the earth’s core. Underground. Underworld. _Hell._ Hyungwon just wouldn’t stop having fun with all those metaphors. 

But, well, at least he reasoned correctly. “Oh, so you are him, great, I’m––”

“No, I’m asking if you think I’m Jooheon’s cousin,” The other guy deadpans and almost quirks his eyebrow. Hyungwon’s brain glitches for a fraction of a second.

“Who’s Jooheon…” He mutters. He knows at the back of his mind that Jooheon is the Joo-something of Jooyeon’s cousin, but the stranger’s hair is auburn-cherry-winey red, and it glimmers in the pale light of the church like a bloody moon in the foreshadowing scenes of death in horror films. 

Hyungwon might have imagined it, but a corner of the guy’s mouth twitches with a hint of amusement. “Well, whatever you think I am, I’m not, name’s Changkyun, nice to meet you.” He extends his hand confidently – a nice hand, carefully cut nails, pretty knuckles, a sign of a good overall physique – and looks up at Hyungwon through the hood of sharp arched lids. Arches aren’t sharp by definition, but Hyungwon’s mind is defying all laws of figurative language today.

“H-Hyungwon,” he stutters, somehow for reasons unknown to him (genetics), and takes the offered hand. “Yeah, nice to meet you too.” He squints, the pleasantly warm small palm still in his hold. “So you are not Jooyeon’s cousin.”

Changkyun shakes his head, still a little amused. “No clue who you’re talking about.” And his accent is rather pleasant too. Could be Irish, for all Hyungwon knows. 

“Huh.” He says, as if to himself. The ceiling lights reflect in the other guy’s coffee eyes with a hint of mirth, though his expression stays languid, as if a little bored. It’s… enigmatic. For sure it is. “Well, anyways, Changkyun, what brought you here?” Hyungwon decides to dumbly start a conversation now that he’s crossed the line of name exchange, and Changkyun smiles, with the same transparent notes of amusement. 

He nods in the direction of the local pastor happily nibbling on biscuit by the refreshments corner. “That funky fella over there.”

It takes no complex deduction to figure out that the man must be his father. Well, at least he is not a full-on authoritative priest. “Cool.” Hyungwon nods. The realisation that he is talking to a proper church boy is starting to sink in. 

“And you, then? You’re a bit too far from the campus on this pleasant November afternoon.” Changkyun deadpans, it’s clear that he does, and yet Hyungwon takes a second to breakdown the lighthearted notes in his voice. It is as if his irony is so metaphysical it’s only available to higher creatures with abnormal hearing – that’s how delicate his tone is. 

“Yeah, I don’t actually live here,” Hyungwon smiles like he finds the situation ridiculous. “My mum’s coworker invited us to tag along so they can spend a swell time together with the whole nursing team and the rest of us, well, me, are here to suffer.”

Changkyun huffs such a subtle laugh that Hyungwon would probably have to lean in close-close-close to be able to hear it. “I can tell.”

“What d’you mean?” Hyungwon quickly retorts, defensive.

“I’m only a second year, but even I had the chance to see your guys’ open mic gig.”

Hyungwon had done a good portion of discourse and communication analysis to catch onto the most elusive indirect speech act he has ever heard, and yet a shameful little shiver still runs along his spine. “Right, of course, that one,” he laughs, emphasising the last bit. _That one_ happened last April when Hyungwon dissed the concept of Easter with so much passion he swore he foamed at the mouth. 

Changkyun laughs with his eyes and only a little bit – with the corners of his mouth. “Eloquent, I must give you that. What are you studying?” They’re still standing by the tiny segregated table with a small water cooler, and Hyungwon is for once happy that most people disregard the concept of hydration. 

“Journalism, Communication and Politics, final year. You?”

He hopes it’s not a mirage but he swears Changkyun quirks an eyebrow. “Astrophysics.”

Hyungwon raises both of his eyebrows so high they hide in the folds on his forehead. “What, for real?”

“Yah,” Changkyun says it like he’s proud and finally, finally offers a proper smile. Hyungwon catches a glimpse of shy dimples before they disappear in the same lazy facade. Hyungwon wants to call the church boy, a church boy, and say that this is some huge incomprehensible catechism in the essence of a human being, but decides to tone down his cynicism just a tiny bit.

“That is pretty cool, I’ll give you that.”

Changkyun doesn’t really respond as he suddenly turns towards the entrance door and nods in that direction. “That’s Jooheon you’re looking for.” 

“Who?” Hyungwon’s mind delays again. Turns out, Changkyun is pointing at a random choir boy that definitely looks more like a dumpling than his newfound church boy acquaintance.

There it comes again – the subtle eyebrow quirk. “The cousin you took me for.”

“Right!” Hyungwon exclaims. He has to fulfill his promise. Before he can take a tentative step towards the choir boy, Changkyun grins. 

“Oi, tiger,” he calls loudly, and the dumpling boy, all adorable with his polite smiles and huge dimples and crescent eyes and impeccable white choir gown, flinches and turns towards the two of them with feral speed. 

Then his surprised look changes three hundred sixty degrees as he squints, and something dangerously feline ignites in his eyes. “Oi, monkey.”

Changkyun slumps, snakeskin jacket hanging loose off his shoulders, and almost pouts with a little smile. Pouts. _Pouts._ “I don’t like that, get me a different nickname.”

The choir boy – Jooheon – smiles cheekily as he treads towards them, wide-spaced and chavvy, and he radiates this energy… this energy of a Monster drink. “Raccoon? How about a raccoon? Or hyena, hyena sounds good,” Jooheon teases until he approaches their little table and swings his arm to give Changkyun a tough handshake.

“You just won’t let me live, eh,” Changkyun responds with a loud high five of his own, and his expression goes back to what it is supposed to be – languid, sly, a little bored, a little amused. “That’s Hyungwon, by the way, he says he knows your cousin.”

Jooheon turns to him with a friendly, albeit surprised, smile. “Jooyeonnie?”

Hyungwon nods. “Jooyeonnie, Jooyeonnie. We worked together before I quit.”

“Cool, tell her I said hi,” Jooheon flashes a dimple that seems to appear even while he simply speaks, and nods at Changkyun again. “I’m gonna go, you in for clubbing this weekend?”

Changkyun nods with his eyelids. “Sure, just text me later.”

Jooheon takes a step back, and a cheeky grin distorts his features again. “Aight, see you soon, you snake. Bye Hyungwon, was nice to meet you.”

Hyungwon smiles to him as a goodbye, and Changkyun rolls his eyes, a trace of amusement sliding along his lips. Hyungwon wants to say something else, ask for his Instagram, maybe, impose himself onto their night out and stick to Changkyun’s snakeskin jacket like a leech, but his mother’s voice reaches him before he can even open his mouth.

“Hyungwonnie, let’s go!”

“Hyungwonnie, let’s go!” Hoseok mocks her in his angelic little voice and grimaces like a tiny little rascal. Hyungwon grimaces back at him.

“Well, I’ll see you around, hopefully?” He says with probably a bit too much hope, and Changkyun nods. 

“See you around, Hyungwonnie.” And just like everything else, his mocking tone is so subtle it’s almost reaching into the unknown fourth dimension. 

Maybe it was love at first sight. As Capricorn as Hyungwon may be, he does love applying unbelievable concepts to abstract feelings he never quite knows how else to describe. He replays everything Changkyun had said to him, double checks his own responses to make sure he gave the right impression, imagines again and again those sharp hooded eyes and delicate touches of amusement on thin lips. 

Friday comes, it’s Kihyun’s birthday, and all deadlines go fuck themselves as they resort to spending the next three days with copious amount of alcohol and buzzing hangovers. Scots really do know how to drink, Minhyuk had said once during one of their pres sessions as he observed Kihyun and Hyungwon trying to outdo each other in the shots gulping competition. Hyungwon’s poor tiny stomach could only take five before he started slurring, while Kihyun took eight and came stumbling into the toilet to pee out three bottles of beer he drank before that.

Well, he is the kind of person who eats full English breakfast every morning, so surely he could take even more than that.

“Chae Hyungwon, yer gettin’ laid tonight,” Kihyun exclaims and hiccups as he puts on his jacket. They’ve got two minutes to catch the bus. 

“Don’t think so, little one,” Hyungwon quietly responds as he holds open the door for Kihyun and Minhyuk to push through.

“Yer at leest winchin’ someone tonight then,” he proudly walks past him and has the audacity to hurry him up as Hyungwon closes the door.

“I just wanna get drunk and forget December is coming in a week,” he sighs, and Minhyuk smiles at him. “Can’t we just skip it? Can we go straight to January, it’s my birthday.”

Kihyun sighs so heavily Hyungwon is sure every single flat heard him. “Jist hibernate like ye always dae.” But he still pats him on the back lovingly.

The line is pretty huge when they get to the club. Hyungwon springs up like a scallion as he looks over the crowd, in unspoken searches for a certain someone. Jooheon did say the weekend, but, hey, they are students, Friday nights are weekends by definition. 

“Stop loomin’ ya dobber, we’re nae e’en inside yit.”

And once inside, Hyungwon starts looming even more. They dance to shitty music, drinks in Kihyun and Hyungwon’s hands, other people’s sweaty bodies bumping into them occasionally, and all Hyungwon does is look around, search, scan, hope. When a particular fancy beat strikes he closes his eyes and lets himself get loose, buzzed enough to enjoy it, hot enough to be confident, stimulated enough to not care. The constant white noise at the back of his head doesn’t leave, he thinks and thinks and thinks, or rather, the thoughts flow and fall, and he merely disregards them as static and washes off the worldly concerns with double vodka lemonade.

After half an hour of thoughtless swaying Minhyuk drags them outside for a smoke and, ironically, a breath of fresh air. The smoking area is filled to the brim, and the three have to push through the plastered crowd to find a free space. It’s only just struck past midnight. 

Midnight is when the princess turns back into the maid, her shining dress falls apart into rags, her carriage cracks and squelches like an old pumpkin, and her servants morph into rats. It goes something like this, except Hyungwon images the process backwards when he finally sees who he’s been looking for for the past hour. For the past life, if he may so hyperbolise. 

Changkyun looks even smaller and lazier when intoxicated. A high grin is smeared on his lips, an impish glint softens his eyes and, god. Goodness fucking gracious. He is wearing leather pants. The tightest, the shiniest leather pants Hyungwon has ever seen. And, as superficial, prejudiced, narrow-minded and stupid that makes him sound, he immediately knows he has a chance. Welcome to the country where the Conservatives rule the fashion world. 

He is sitting on a narrow window sill surrounded by a group of equally intoxicated lads and is rolling tobacco, and Hyungwon is so ridiculously mesmerised by the faint glow of Changkyun’s crooked smile, that his unlit cigarette falls on the ground before it stood a chance.

“A pervert is whit ye ur,” Kihyun exclaims from his seat on the same dirty sill, and Hyungwon finally comes to, flinches and quickly squats to pick up the cigarette. Meh, it’s not that gross. 

Kihyun’s free hand is resting on Minhyuk’s lower back; Minhyuk has his eyes closed, and he smokes calmly, spine hunched but head thrown back, long neck exposed. There is a smudge of foundation just above the round collar of his t-shirt; Hyungwon doesn’t know when they managed and he isn’t burning with desire to find out. Among the cacophony of mindless chatter and drunken laughter, he still hears way the tobacco paper smoulders with each arhythmic inhale his friends take, he takes, the people around him take. 

A guy next to him is flirting with a girl he just met, he is bragging about his course, his job, how successful he is at the tender age of twenty-one. The girl laughs, quirks her eyebrows there and there, tries her best to insert her worthy two cents on the matter, and sighs when she realises her friend is probably not coming back to get her. The group to his other shoulder is cackling about a friend that got so hammered he threw up in the toilet. I was like, Dave, no, don’t buy another VK, you’re gonna be sick, but he’s like, nah, I’m fine mate, and then he fucking ran to the toilet– It always goes like something along those lines. A couple to Kihyun’s left is making out on the window sill, but they are probably not a couple-couple. Hyungwon doesn’t mean to judge, but she is dressed to impress, and he is overly confident in his jeans and a boring t-shirt with a Football team logo. A group of much older men roll tobacco by the barrier, speak their own tongue and probably came here to have a good time, whatever a good time might be in their definition. 

Too many accents, too many dialects, and too many languages around him, and yet they dissipate like smoke swayed by a hand when Changkyun’s laugh reaches his ears. Hyungwon has never heard him laugh but he was certain it was him the moment a hoarse lilt left his mouth. He has the cutest teeth Hyungwon has ever seen. His hazy eyes crinkle and glint brighter, little dimples form on the apples of his cheeks, his eyebrows curve and he bends down with the strength of his amusement, a small puff is smoke escaping into foggy air. An eyebrow piercing reflects the sickly light of the lanterns. Hyungwon is sure it wasn’t there the other day in the church. 

“If you really wanna talk to him, just go for it,” Minhyuk says in his soft raspy voice. 

Hyungwon breathes out a silent laugh at the idea. “No, not drunk enough for this.”

“Who’s that?” Kihyun cuts in, frowning and squinting and exhaling with a side of his mouth like an old man. 

“Just someone I met at uni.” Technically, Hyungwon is not lying, he just chooses not to disclose the full details. 

“I bet ten quid yer winching someain tonight.”

Hyungwon rolls his eyes. 

The moment his irises are back to their rightful place, his breath almost hitches. Because for a quick second, but the quickest sliver of a second, Changkyun glances to the side after he’s calmed down from his laughter, and his eyes meet Hyungwon’s for that miserable fraction of time. They slide over him, his face, his figure, his heart and soul, languid and careless and so, so deadly tempting. 

There is a lot of words Hyungwon can think of to describe Changkyun’s gaze, ‘sexy’ probably being the least sophisticated of them all. Seducing, hypnotic, magnetic, alluring, bewitching, provocative, coquettish, foxy, sinful, sacreligious, blasphemous, fucking beddable, if he pleases. And yet Hyungwon settles on tempting. Temptuous. Temptilising. Temptic. Tempty. Temptful. Temptation-inducing. 

Because as soon as Changkyun turns back to his group of people and exhales, Hyungwon takes the last drag, throws the cigarette on the ground and stomps it like the absolute brute that he oh, so despises. All it takes him is seven steps to reach the edge of the smoking area and catch the attention of some of the unfamiliar guys he can’t care less about. 

He gently presses his fingers to Changkyun’s curled lower back. “Hey,” he says, confidently enough for Changkyun to hear and yet intimately enough that it’s clear – his idle greeting was only meant for him. Changkyun doesn’t need to fully look up to know who it is, but he twists his head in a way that lets him steal a side glance at Hyungwon’s shoulders. Hyungwon leans down. “I only approached with one extremely impure intention,” he pauses, “can I have your Instagram?”

Changkyun smiles with one corner of his mouth and properly looks up. His eyes are worthy of a Renaissance painting. Hyungwon won’t even blink if the Sistine Chapel burns with all its masterpieces, if the Louvre comes crumbling down, if his favourite National Gallery falls into earth cracks and his membership pass will be invalid. All he wants to look at for the rest of his life is Changkyun’s face when he flutters his delicate lashes upon casting his eyes on him. 

“Just Instagram? Not a Snapchat person then, are you?” Changkyun replies just as quietly, intimately, saving his words for Hyungwon only. He doesn’t sound as tipsy as he looks. Hyungwon’s fingers are still lightly pressed to the leather of Changkyun’s jacket. 

“Whichever you feel comfortable sharing.” Hyungwon stares at Changkyun intently, as if into him, through him, within him. Getting lost in the coffee cup of his eyes. Boiling in the steam. Chilling with ground coffee beans that didn’t dissolve on the bottom. 

Changkyun reaches for his phone with an amused smile on his face; his friends are giving him weird looks (or playful, who knows); Hyungwon is mesmerised by the black roots of blood red strands on top of Changkyun’s head. 

“Here,” Changkyun shows him the screen of his phone with his Instagram page already open. im_ckboi, the header proudly says. Korean and Irish flags spice up the bio. He is read like an open book. 

Hyungwon searches the username, requests, Changkyun accepts and requests back. Such a simple interaction, a norm among their generation, a weekly occurrence, and yet Hyungwon smiles like he’s just received the best birthday present he’s been dreaming of since he was little. And the fun thing is? He doesn’t have such a present in mind. 

“Thank you, love,” Hyungwon quietly says before leaving. His fingers softly slide along the remaining expanse of Changkyun’s lower back, and yet even when he joins his mildly annoyed couple of friends and enters the club again, his fingertips burn as if he just rubbed a tire of a racing car. 

“Ye didnae winch,” Kihyun states, a little confused. 

“No, and I wasn’t planning to.”

The rest of the night Hyungwon spends in such a drunken bliss he doesn’t feel his legs hurt from ceaseless grooving. 

It takes Hyungwon a Saturday morning hangover, a Saturday night rave, a Sunday morning hangover, an unplanned Sunday night out in a pub and a Monday morning lecture before he could at least think to open Changkyun’s Instagram. 

And now that he has, he sighs and continues to uselessly hover over the ‘Message’ button. He is chilling at his parents’ house to take care of Hoseok while they’re both working. The good little boy is doing his homework by the coffee table while Hyungwon is plastered on the couch in the living room with such a tormented look that even Hoseok notices and makes a face at him. 

“Why aren’t you doing your homework? You’re always on your phone.”

Hyungwon glances at him, almost offended. “I don’t get homework, I’m an adult. If I wanna sit on my phone, I will,” he mumbles.

Hoseok grimaces at him like a little angel. “I will tell mum you’re lazy.”

Hyungwon makes a face back at him and looks back down at his phone. He’s stared at Changkyun’s selfie on the round little icon for so long he can probably draw it with his eyes closed and proudly give it to Minhyuk to judge.

He sighs again, clicks his tongue, shake his head, mutters the quietest ‘ah, fuck it’ under his breath and presses the ‘Message’ box. The chat is open. Well, he’ll just give it a go.

  
**icedcoffeeinnit**  
Hey  
Before I expose myself with all my impure motifs, I just wanted to say  
I love your jackets

Admittedly, not the cleverest move, but Hyungwon can proudly say that he did his best. He started a conversation he should’ve started a day ago instead of wailing in pity over his hangover.

Hyungwon does a full-body flinch. Changkyun is typing. 

**im_ckboi**  
good day  
ngl i expected u to message sooner but i suppose weekends are go-hard days for everyone  
thanks) i have a collection

  
**icedcoffeeinnit**  
If you were so sure about my initiative, you could message me first too :\\\  
And I would certainly like to see it sometime

**im_ckboi**  
wheres the fun in that  
and i’ll do my best  
it’s getting cold, i need to be careful with my fashion choices

  
**icedcoffeeinnit**  
“Where’s the fun in that,” he says  
Also, I wanted to ask  
How do you know Hyunwoo?

**im_ckboi**  
🤪  
ah hyunwoo  
his boyfriend was the student ambassador on my course  
and then my mentor during my first year

Hyungwon stares at the messages. _Where’s the fun in that_ , Changkyun says and replies with that emoji out of all emojis out there. And the more Hyungwon asks, the less he knows about the other guy.

 **im_ckboi**  
and u?

  
**icedcoffeeinnit**  
Were in the dance society together two years ago  
Never knew he had a boyfriend, but perhaps that’s on me  
I tend to close my eyes on other people’s relationships

**im_ckboi**  
a cynic u are  
i see

  
**icedcoffeeinnit**  
Just how many of our open mics have you been to

**im_ckboi**  
just one  
and don’t flatter urself, i stumbled there by accident  
i’m just good at reading people beyond how they wish to be perceived

  
**icedcoffeeinnit**  
Strong words coming from someone who dedicates his life to Physics  
Actually, please excuse my impertinence, I didn’t mean to start off on a rude note  
Unfortunately, your fascination (I assume) for Physics is the only thing I know about you

**im_ckboi**  
ur the first person i’ve seen who apologises for banter  
lmao are we communicating in emails  
unfortunately, ur obsession with political correctness or the lack thereof is the only thing i know about you

  
**icedcoffeeinnit**  
By all means, Mr Im, the only one being an enigma right now is you  
This is where I wanted to insert a smooth transition to my next question lol  
Would you be interested in, perhaps, continuing a conversation in verbal form?  
Simply speaking, have lunch together  
If you want  
Of course

**im_ckboi**  
now that’s some eloquence this generation is missing  
sure  
wednesday is best for me

Hyungwon drops his phone on his stomach and screams internally. He brings his hands to his cheeks; they have begun the process of shameless blushing. Hyungwon inhales and exhales, stares into nothingness and tries to calm down. This is a guy he knows for no more than ten minutes of live conversations.

  
**icedcoffeeinnit**  
Same for me

Before Hyungwon can start typing out a series of important questions and confirmations, Changkyun messages again.

 **im_ckboi**  
i’ll let u know the exact time and place later, i’m doing good old practicals rn

The next thing Hyungwon knows, Changkyun sends him a snap of a massive telescope in what he assumes is an observatory, with a caption that says – prepare yourselves – ‘big boi’. 

Hyungwon sniffs to conceal a little squeal. Hoseok gives him a look.

  
**icedcoffeeinnit**  
Have fun 💕

He doesn’t know why he sent a heart, he never does. He just felt like it. It felt right. It felt right to send a little pink heart to a guy he knows for ten minutes and the guy he has just asked out to have lunch with. And the fun thing is? He knows it might be considered a date absolutely univocally. Maybe. Just maybe.

There are still a few days to go until December, and yet all these Christmas lights shine brighter than ever. Starbucks cups have long become red and sparkly, a few tinsels are hanging there and there, a poster is advertising a Christmas market opening next week, and a few couches in the main lobby have been moved to make space for the huge pine tree they will put up on the weekend. 

A bloody disaster this place is.

But Hyungwon, just like Christmas, Christianity, the Pope, the Prime Minister, the Queen, the Parliament and pretty much the entire nation, is drowning in the evil poisonous juice of capitalism and is stuck to viscous webs of private enterprises, and so he goes to the cafeteria with a heavy soul to buy himself a large Americano in a red sparkly Christmas cup.

He can reject and riot against McDonald’s all he wants, but coffee is sacred and shall never go to waste. He never claimed to not be a hypocrite. 

Hyungwon happily pays for this monstrosity of a coffee cup and upon receiving his drink, turns to the great expanse of the cafeteria and feels the world push him down to the ground. He is looking for Changkyun. He is looking for Changkyun to have lunch with him because they both agreed to it. Hyungwon sighs. 

Turns out Changkyun is sitting in one of the booths by the glass wall with his laptop out, still doing his coursework. Bless this hardworking chap.

“Mind if I sit?” Hyungwon asks albeit already moving to sit opposite Changkyun who raises his head in surprise. His hair is just as slightly parted over his forehead as it was back when they first met, and he is wearing a simple black hoodie, jacket probably disregarded somewhere on his seat. He looks comfortable. Huggable. Cuddable. 

He then smiles softly, if softness in the context of Changkyun means subtlety. “How are you?” He asks, closing his notebook and probably tabs on his laptop, if simple movements over the trackpad is anything to go by. 

“I’m good, fantastic, actually. Bit knackered after my Media Law lecture, still questioning why I chose to do that crap. You know I was actually in Law school in the first few weeks of starting uni? Good thing I changed the course,” Hyungwon blabbers and twitches his eyebrows at his own struggles. Some people just like it when you pour every single bit of information about yourself before speaking, Changkyun might be that kind of guy. Hyungwon certainly is – he loves honesty and openness more than anything and loathes the gratuitous amount of fakeness in every second person he meets. One of the main reasons he loves Kihyun and Minhyuk as much as his laptop – they are never dishonest with him. 

“I took a gap year after school, thinking that it’d be, like, really cool if I interned in a couple of fashion magazines before applying for Fashion Design and Technology, which I did, actually, but I dropped out after the first semester,” and then Changkyun does the impossible – he pouts. Almost. “It was kinda sad realising I wasn’t meant for art.”

Hyungwon laughs at first and then frowns. He looks up, solving complex math in his head, as if he can see screws in his brain working. Changkyun seems to be able to see them too, because he says:

“I graduated school at seventeen.”

Hyungwon’s lips round in surprise and his eyes widen too. “Damn, you’re a brainy one.”

Changkyun breathes out a laugh. “Skipping a year of elementary school does little to your intelligence. You’re not eating anything?”

Only then Hyungwon notices a plastic sandwich wrap on the table and a little sushi box that costs more than it’s worth. “I’ll grab something later, I’ve got my coffee to keep me full.”

“Bold of you to ask me out for lunch and then not eat anything. I thought you were a man of manners?” Changkyun asks with an eyebrow quirk and stuffs a roll into his mouth. When he chews, his cheeks bulge adorably, and his lips unconsciously grow pouty. He is the cutest thing in the world. Hyungwon doesn’t immediately process the question.

“‘Later’ doesn’t necessarily mean hours from now, calm down, Changkyun,” Hyungwon smiles, but his eyes are fixed on the way the other guy’s mouth moves in tune to his delightful glomping. 

Changkyun looks at him with a thin hint of amusement. “Why’d you ask me anyways? Thought you principally excluded everyone somehow connected to godly matters out of your social circle.”

Hyungwon ignores the question, but not because he is not in a mood to fight, or because it is too early to start flirting head-on, or because he remembered that Changkyun is, in fact, a church boy, no. There is a small grain of rice stuck to the corner of his mouth. 

Before he can even think of words to justify himself, Changkyun already takes his action for an answer when Hyungwon rises from his seat, reaches for his face and carefully removes the grain with the tips of his fingers. As if enchanted, Hyungwon does it all in slow motion, and for a long second, Changkyun doesn’t chew. 

But when Hyungwon sits back down and his face gains a little more grasp, a twinkle of amusement in Changkyun’s eyes glows brighter. “Didn’t hear the question, did you?” He states, rather than asks, and Hyungwon sighs and clicks his tongue, albeit endearingly.

“I may be extremely biased about certain things but I’m not an arse. Besides, a pious church boy raving in the shittiest club in town? Makes you think.” Hyungwon twitches his eyebrows up with a little smile.

Changkyun lightly laughs at that, shoving another roll into his mouth. “Yeah, no, parents don’t know about the rebellious lifestyle I lead. They’re fine, like, they’re great people, in fact, but I prefer to keep to myself.”

“Do you live separately from them?” Hyungwon asks, sipping his coffee. It’s kind of shit today; not made with love. The worst coffee is coffee not made with love, and Hyungwon grows a little sad. He really, really appreciates it when his coffee is made with love. 

“I used to, in the first year when I did Fashion, but then I ran out of money and moved back in with them. Needless to say, Astrophysics was a better choice of subject. My dad’s a scientist, actually.” Changkyun starts talking with much more traceable excitement in his voice, like he is happy to share such seemingly mundane information with someone new. Hyungwon loves doing it too – sometimes he gets so tired of ceaseless banter with Kihyun that just a normal conversation with someone you want to get to know is a rather pleasant change. 

“How does that work?”

Changkyun shrugs. “Don’t know. He is a biologist. Well, you know,” his voice rises in pitch as if he choked on a chunk of information he wants to pour out but his tongue is just not quick enough to express everything he wants to express. He looks up, searching for words. “There are degrees of beliefs. I’m not a philosopher but from what I gathered it’s more about comfort in believing that there is something that can guide you… somewhere, wherever it needs to guide. Never really questioned it. Like, despite knowing that what gives us our ‘holy bread’ is hard-working farmers and cattle, it feels nice to just pray before dinner, as in, thank God we have people like the French who invented the baguette.”

Hyungwon laughs at the sudden remark so hard he nearly sputters the coffee he just sipped. Changkyun snorts at him and tosses him a used tissue across the table. “Ba… baguette...” Hyungwon wheezes, sniffing. Some coffee went up his nose. He crosses himself Orthodox-style and folds his hands together in a praying gesture. “Bless the French, amen.”

Changkyun doesn’t mind the mockery and laughs with him too. “Imagine how blessed I felt when I tried French cuisine for the first time after being fed Irish stew my entire childhood.”

The laugh Hyungwon chokes out is so high and loud a few people in the cafeteria turn their heads. “No fucking way, how old were you?”

“Jeez, like eight? I’ve been home-fed by my good old Irish nanny until I went to elementary school. Like, my parents moved to Ireland for work purposes before I was even born so it’s not like they were completely detached from Korean food culture but, bro, the first time I tried, say, kimchi, was in a restaurant.”

Hyungwon bends over with the strength of his laughter. “My step dad’s,” he coughs out the remains of his cackling, “basically a chef, so I feel so sorry for you.”

“That just made me feel a bit shit, not gonna lie,” Changkyun pouts through a smile, and Hyungwon releases another chortle. “You live with them?”

“With my fam? Nah, I live in a student accomodation. I could rent a house with my mates this year but decided against it after my best friend got a boyfriend.” The ‘mates’ is just Kihyun, really, since the rest of his friendships aren’t at the level of cohabitation yet, and as much as he loves Minhyuk to bits, genuinely adores the guy like his own son and pet and guardian angel, he can’t imagine third-wheeling twenty-four seven. And all the noise complaints he’d get after potential one-night stands in his bedroom? And sharing a bathroom with other men? And listening to those two bullies singing opera duets just for the fuck of it? God forbid.

Changkyun tilts his head to the side. “Is it the guys you were with in the club the other day?”

“Yep, those are the ones. Absolute fucking rascals but, what can you do, sometimes keeping your distance helps you keep the friendships.”

“Philosophical,” Changkyun notes and chews pensively. He is unfairly cute. The type of cute that’s unconscious and involuntary and is therefore never annoying. Fourteen out of ten a good boy.

“You know what else is rather philosophical?” Hyungwon squints. “Do you play the organ?”

Changkyun quirks his eyebrow in what Hyungwon deems a typical Changkyun fashion. “Stalked my Instagram?”

Hyungwon gives a sort of deadpan smile like Changkyun is stupid for assuming that’s something Hyungwon _wouldn’t_ do. “I’d walk you home to the other side of the town without you having to ask me to.”

Changkyun clearly struggles to make a connection with the implication but decides to go with the flow. “I went to a music school back in the days. Dad only thought it natural I’d give organ a try.”

“You know,” Hyungwon sips his coffee as he thinks of the right words. “You are an enigma to me. Are you purposefully being mysterious or has it been so long since I met someone new I lost my grasp on human psychology?”

“You know,” Changkyun puts his elbows on the table and leans in. “I think you’re the one being obscure.” He says it with a note of challenge in his voice. “You really are a journalist, eh?”

Hyungwon smiles. “Fancy words but no substance? Sounds about right.”

Changkyun suddenly curves his eyebrows, somehow apologetic. “I didn’t mean to call you superficial, I just feel like, jeez, how do I put it without sounding offensive? It’s like you don’t fully immerse in what’s going on. You know what I mean? I don’t know what I mean.”

Hyungwon smiles again. “Seem a bit abstracted from the world, something like that?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Changkyun exclaims. “Tend to space out a lot? I noticed during our first meeting. Thought there was something on my face.”

“I just overthink. Okay, tell you what,” Hyungwon leans in too, conspiratorial. Changkyun leans in closer. “See that girl on the table to your right? Her tan has been bugging me since I sat down.” Changkyun presses his lips tightly together to contain an involuntary snort. “Also that guy by the computers? They wouldn’t stop giving me dirty looks ever since I laughed out loud, and, oh, that guy in the far corner? I can’t see well but I think that’s one of the guys from our speaking society who tried to counter argue with me about the importance of religion, like, dude. I swear, it was like months ago but I just can’t stop thinking about it ever since, like, you really live like that? Preaching? So I just went on this angry tangent and now struggling to get out of it. Also, you ever seen that TikTok video of a guy eating a doughnut in one chomp? Now I want a doughnut. Did you know that when I was twelve I thought doughnuts make your dick fat?”

Changkyun gives up on trying to contain his laughter and lets it go, illuminating the room in the gleeful glow of his smile. He’s got the cutest teeth the world has ever witnessed. Hyungwon stares at the faint dimples on the apples of his cheeks. 

“Explains the dumb look you have on your face most of the time.”

Hyungwon widens his eyes and opens his mouth in the most obscene expression of offense, at which Changkyun just laughs harder with faint exhales of ‘I’m just joking, joking’. “Oi, I may look stupid but I got all A’s in my finals.” Then Hyungwon takes a pause, twitching his upper lip a little. “The only straight A’s I’ve got.”

“What did you study?”

“English Lit, History, Econ before I dropped, and – you wouldn’t believe – Religious Studies.”

Changkyun gives him the kind of glare like he is a creep. “Damn, someone’s either really angry or in denial.”

“I just prefer to dive deep into arguments with knowledge and facts on my hands.” Hyungwon suddenly bounces on his seat like a chicken on fire. “Did you know James 1st translated the Bible because he had a male lover and wanted justice for all the English gay babies?”

Changkyun is slightly taken by surprise with a sudden outburst of excitement from Hyungwon’s side. “Never heard of that.”

“Well, I mean, he wanted power, actually, because he wasn’t into Catholicism that much, which I understand all too well, but well, fun fact.” Hyungwon then frowns, a little disturbed. “Although he was a minor when he fell in love with a thirty-something man, but that’s post-Medieval England we’re talking about.”

“You just love learning random shit to throw it into people’s faces?” Changkyun asks, amused.

Hyungwon pouts, as if pitying himself. “Yeah. Boredom kills. If only I was as interested in my course readings as I am in disproving people in their beliefs for personal satisfaction, I would never struggle with my essay work.”

“What logical reasons do you have for your hatred for Christmas then?” Strangely, Changkyun doesn’t seem even a tiny bit unamused. His eyes shine ever so slightly as he listens to Hyungwon chatter like a morning bird, as if he genuinely finds him fascinating. Hyungwon doesn’t get to experience such a euphoric rush of megalomania very often. Not that he has a grand ego, or something. He just loves feeling appreciated with all his flaws.

“Actually, I don’t have a single reason, would you believe that? I just do – well, I mean, other than the fact that what Christmas has become of recent years – a century, I mean – is just a big stinky scam of capitalism, and also I think Santa Claus is stupid, is all.”

Changkyun’s jaws go slack in pure offense. “Santa Claus is not stupid, you’re stupid!” Then he slumps in his seat, frowning. “Actually, you have a point. He didn’t get a big belly from eating elves, it must be all that beer.”

Hyungwon snorts so hard the coffee goes up his nose again. “I actually said that too once! So, a few years back, when I was in primary school, which is a lot of years ago, actually – anyways, so…”

Their conversation moves onto the frosty streets of November afternoon, as Hyungwon walks Changkyun to the bus stop closer to his side of the town while blabbering his life away. Their shoulders would almost touch, if it wasn’t for the height difference, and they go step in step, leaving a long four-foot trail behind them in the dirt. Changkyun’s hand is wrapped around Hyungwon’s forearm – to prevent them both from slipping, that is. 

“And he went like, you didn’t give me a present? And I was like, no, you dumb baby, I told you I don’t succumb to the concept of Christmas presents, and he was like, all I asked for was twenty pounds! You couldn’t even give me twenty pounds? I was so mad, like, my little one, do I look like I’ve got twenty quid to spare, I mean, I do, but why would I just randomly give them to you on the day that means nothing special––oh, dear, I’m sorry, my brother called me Grinch once, I’m sorry if I’m ruining your festive mood,” Hyungwon apologises out of nowhere, although Changkyun just keeps smiling. 

“Don’t worry about it, dude, I don’t get offended over stuff like this.” Changkyun casually says. Well, Hyungwon is surely getting offended over being dude-zoned. He is definitely going back home to think about what he’s done wrong to be in such an unpleasant position. 

“I do get my brother gifts though, but I always give him gifts, it’s not my fault the only time I buy him something falls on Christmas day.”

“And the Christmas gift wrap you also found on accident in the darkest corner of your room?”

“Exactly!” Hyungwon exclaims, enjoying the joke. “And the stupid Christmas cards aren’t even written by me, I think Minhyuk – my best mate’s boyfriend, he is an artist – is just really good at copying my handwriting. But it’s only for my brother, he is eight, he deserves a little exception to the rule.”

“That’s a big age difference,” Changkyun notes. “There’s only two between my older bro and I.”

“Yeah, his dad is my stepdad, mum and him got together when I was in school. Mum had me early, so she could afford to birth another little rascal after thirty.”

Changkyun chuckles. “Well, at least no one tells you you’re a gift from God anymore.”

Hyungwon widens his eyes incredulously and clutches Changkyun’s forearm just a little tighter. “No way, they still tell you that?”

“Yeah, all that biology research and––”

“You’re a true Satan’s spawn, if anything,” Hyungwon interrupts, walking off like what he said is totally normal.

Changkyun quirks his brows at him in a way Hyungwon hasn’t seen yet. He realises now that the more they talk, the less subtle Changkyun becomes. “Really, dude?” He laughs and then detaches himself from Hyungwon to spin around in one place. “Look at me, I’m a little angel in disguise.”

Hyungwon would look, he honestly would, but his eyes stray down to the little butt and skinny thighs peeking from below the puffy jacket, and so he thoughtlessly agrees, too carried away by the flashing ideas.

“In disguise for sure,” Hyungwon mumbles and shakes his head, offering a little smile.

“Well,” Changkyun suddenly steps closer. There is a timid glow in his eyes, different to the one he had back in the church. It’s like he started letting his guard down with Hyungwon, like he could finally look up at him with the sharp arches of his lids and fluttering lashes and steaming cups of coffee in his irises, and finally speaks his mind. “There’s my bus.”

Hyungwon comes to a sad realisation that they have reached their destination. He glances behind himself to, indeed, see a bus approaching, and when he looks back at Changkyun, an unconscious pout grows on his lips. Changkyun chuckles again. 

“Just message me if you wanna meet up again sometime,” he says and runs towards the stopping vehicle. 

Hyungwon’s heart fills up with glue as he watches the moment dissipate right in front of his eyes. They were totally having a moment there. A moment. A _moment_. “Or, you know, you can message me first,” he shouts.

Changkyun hops into the bus and turns around. “Where’s the fun in that?” He shouts back and before he turns back around, Hyungwon catches a tiny-tiny smile crawling to the corners of his mouth. 

As soon as the bus takes Changkyun away, Hyungwon realises two new things. First, his heart drops at the thought of not seeing the guy for at least a few days given his looming deadlines and soul-sucking classes. And two, it will now take him at least forty minutes to go back to his place, but for Changkyun, he doesn’t mind doing it every day if it means seeing him smile the way he did.

Ah, yes, December. The month of hell.

More Christmas cards are derailing the souvenir stands, ugly Christmas sweaters and socks are piling up in every single retail store, pine trees, usually fake, brood in the corners like some uninvited ghosts, and cosplayers, goodness gracious, the motherfucking cosplayers are dressing as Santa Motherfucking Clause to ravage the high street of their little town.

Let the countdown begin then.

25 days before Christmas.

“Where ye headin’ to?” Kihyun asks, raising his tortured head from the curse of a coursework.

“Church,” Hyungwon says like it’s obvious. “Sunday service, first day of Advent.” He pulls his coat up.

Kihyun squints so hard his eyes disappear. “Ur ye high?”

Hyungwon huffs out some air and packs his bag. “Gosh, Kihyun, why do you always assume the worst? Maybe I finally found God seeing as it’s a Sunday and, look outside, it’s truly sunny for once.”

“That _is_ the worst.” Kihyun rolls his eyes.

“Mate, I’m just popping by to see someone.”

“In a church.” Kihyun deadpans.

“Yes, anyways, I gotta run, I’ll be late,” Hyungwon waves a half-hearted goodbye and storms off. 

“To a church.” Kihyun sighs and lowers his plebeian head back into his notes.

Half an hour later, Hyungwon finds himself standing outside that damned house of god, smoking as he waits for Changkyun to come out. No way is he popping inside ever again – he’s had enough embarrassment linked to that place to last him a lifetime. 

“Aye, Slenderman,” Changkyun’s voice hits him out of nowhere. He magically spoofs next to Hyungwon like some non-bearded leprechaun, a mysterious aura of glee radiating off him like fuzzy CGI. The smile that immediately grows on Hyungwon’s face could raise the dead from the grave. 

“Hey, ready to go then?” Hyungwon sticks out his elbow in a gentleman-like invitation for Changkyun to wrap his pretty little hand around his arm, which the other accepts. Actually, Changkyun in no way resembles a leprechaun other than that unsettling mischievous glint in his eyes that ignited whenever Hyungwon made another offhand compliment or an innuendo during their previous lunch session, but, well, it was the first Irish gremlin that came to mind. 

“Yah. How’ve you been, how are the deadlines?” Truth be told, Hyungwon read up a bit on Irish mythology out of boredom, not because he wanted to impress Changkyun, or whatever, but because he was bored and thinking about Changkyun and reading about irrelevant things usually helped him feel productive when he, honest to god, wasn’t. 

“Gosh, you can’t even imagine, I typed around three thousand words last night in one sitting, finally submitted that son of a bitch today at six a.m.” So there is this fairy, the clurichaun, that loves drinking and haunting pubs, basically Dionysis in a poltergeist body, a lonely creature that has fun by drowning in alcohol, which is something Changkyun once opened up about. When he is bored, and he frequently gets bored, not unlike Hyungwon (perhaps, it is a smart people’s curse), he loves to whip out a can of beer or a bottle of champagne and waltz around his room naked to hip-hop or Mozart, that depends on the day, until he hears the door to his parents’ bedroom close and he comes back to the real world in vain search of dignity and underwear.

“It’s Sunday, man, what are you doing,” Changkyun chuckles. There is this other creature, Dobhar-chú, Hyungwon isn’t sure what its goal on earth but it’s half-dog, half-otter, which is pretty cool, because sometimes Changkyun is definitely a feral puppy hiding underneath the fur of a seemingly harmless being. 

“I’ve got one last report to submit before Tuesday, but before you chase me back to hell I call the Campus Library – don’t worry, there is still Monday, I’ve got it all under control.” Hyungwon actually loves mythology, despite being rather sceptical about the existence of unreal things. It’s a good read nonetheless, makes you wonder how humans came up with all that impossible crap back in the days when… well, nothing was really happening. Or maybe he is mistaken, and so much more was actually happening that he can possibly imagine. Homer did somehow come up with the whole Giant Horse subterfuge, maybe it was based on a real giant horse that no one ever knows about, maybe Trojan War was a real undocumented event turned into a legend, and horse-looking dinosaurs were still alive except no one noticed them because… because they were so afraid of humans they hid in the bottom of the oceans or in the mountains and died there without anyone – other than Homer, of course – ever witnessing them alive. 

“Wish I could kick your bum, but I get it, I’ve got so much work to do, I don’t remember the last time I watched Netflix.” Or maybe… the Greeks didn’t witness a horse-like dinosaur but they did find out about the others. Prehistoric humans – humans in pre-technology era, obviously – couldn’t have known archeology, but they did come up with dragons. The Egyptians, the Romans, the Japanese, the Chinese, the Indians, ancient Mesopotamia, the Jews, the Slavs – although those are hardly ancient – all had the capability to come up with the incredible concept of huge serpents that are rightfully put on the top of the hierarchy for poor plebeians to bow their heads to––

How bloody cool is that?

“Hyungwon,” Changkyun whines. Hyungwon shakes his head and looks at him with eyes so lost it clearly gives away exactly what he was doing. Surprisingly, not thinking about how good of a kisser Changkyun could be. 

“Sorry, yeah, uh, what shows do you like watching?” Is he? Is he not?

Changkyun squints at him. “I told you on Friday.” Can Hyungwon ever find out?

“Right, something with a lot of murders and handsome charming main characters.” Hyungwon clicks his tongue pensively. “I should get a show of my own.”

Suddenly, Changkyun lightly stomps his feet on the ground. “You weren’t listening again,” he whines, really whines, a little pout growing on his pink lips. They are so pink and soft and pretty and they move with such graceful wonder whenever Changkyun talks that Hyungwon always, always has a hard time focusing between his eyes and his cherry-coloured mouth.

“I was! I always listen to you,” Hyungwon sighs and puts his other hand on top of Changkyun’s that’s nestled in the crook of his elbow. “I genuinely do. I’d rather listen to you than to the empty white noise at the back of my head.

Changkyun lets go of the squint and shuffles invisibly closer to Hyungwon’s side. He hums. “Okay. I’ll talk then, and you’ll try to recall everything I’ve told you about my favourite constellations.” Before Hyungwon can release a sigh of utter frustration he doesn’t actually mean, Changkyun bounces on his next step and shines brighter than he ever has. Nothing can beat the beauty of an excited Changkyun. Nothing. _Nothing_. “So you know how I’m an Aquarius? Right, so actually, the Water Bearer myth actually came from Ancient Greece, which I really fucking love, so this guy, right…”

They chat all the way to the cafe Changkyun recommended, and during their late lunch, and on the bus to the town centre so Hyungwon doesn’t spend ages on the way back home. And even if by the end of the day Changkyun slowly burns out all the energy on flailing his arms and Googling pics and slamming the table to fight Hyungwon over opinions that don’t really matter in the end times, what never dies out until the very last minute of their date is the stars in Changkyun’s eyes.

“So Orion constellation has two supergiants, Betelgeuse and Rigel, and they are so huge that when they die they supernova and turn into black holes, but these two are in the same constellation, so that’s sick, man. Like, imagine how cool it is to see a star explode, the things I’d give to witness that, honestly.” They’re sitting at the bus stop waiting for Changkyun’s bus. Hyungwon looks up but sees no stars in the sky because the sky in England is never clean enough for that. When he looks down, he sees those lost stars levitating all around Changkyun as if sparkles emoji have been photoshopped all over his head. That’s how traceable his excitement is. That’s how excited Changkyun’s excitement makes Hyungwon feel.

“I just wanna see the stars from my place on earth, but, alas, welcome to England, a country where even the Sun doesn’t shine.” Hyungwon huffs at the dirty sky.

Changkyun laughs and looks up too. It’s cloudy even at night. The only thing illuminating the world around them are the windows and street lamps and headlights of Changkyun’s approaching bus. Bloody December, always ruining the most romantic moments.

They get up, Hyungwon with a grunt of a man who’s seen the world come crumbling down to its rightful end with his own two eyes, and Changkyun with a little excited bounce. He turns to Hyungwon, an amused smile playing on his lips. 

“Had a nice time today too,” Changkyun says, and the stars that twinkle in his eyes are gently mischievous, if mischief can at all be gentle. Changkyun’s smile is always a little crooked, as if he tries his best to hold it in, and right now it spreads in this uneven shape when he catches Hyungwon staring. Again. 

It takes him only a second to slightly rise on his tiptoes and grant Hyungwon’s cold cheek the softest peck he has ever felt. A simple touch of his dry lips over frozen skin, and Hyungwon falls into stupor with a hand pressing over the spot where the kiss imprinted. Changkyun smiles, and Hyungwon knows he looks stupidly foolish, and the tautology only exaggerates his state of mind. 

“I’ll see you soon,” Changkyun says and jogs to the bus before the doors close, leaving Hyungwon in his frozen enamoured state for what feels like an eternity. He catches Changkyun look out the window at him with the same amused smile he always has, and Hyungwon only manages to wave him goodbye with the tips of his useless fingers. 

A silly giggle finds its way out of his mouth when the bus finally leaves him in the dark of the cold December street. 

24 days before Christmas.

Just the next day when Hyungwon is trying to blindly pour himself a cup of coffee before the class he is planning to skip, Jackson, his flatmate, barges into the kitchen. 

“Morning,” he mumbles, scratching his head, and opens the fridge. He is a cool guy, Jackson; from Hong Kong, speaks like an American, studies hell knows what, is a clean and friendly flatmate and, surprisingly, never brings the party to the house. A good lad. 

“Mhm,” Hyungwon hums back, mindlessly spinning the spoon in his coffee. Jackson comes into his sight with a stunned face.

“Are you alright, man?” He asks, voice airy with genuine shock and worry. “You’re red like a tomato.”

It’s pretty funny how he says ‘tomato’ like ‘toe-may-toe’. 

“Yeah, I’m good,” Hyungwon replies, nodding.

“It’s seven a.m., man,” Jackson says with so much incredulity in his voice it scrapes at the inside of his throat. “You’re never awake at seven a.m.”

“Well, things change sometimes,” Hyungwon says affirmingly and buries his face in his cup of coffee. 

“Are you blushing?” Jackson almost exclaims. 

Hyungwon commits the first rookie mistake - he giggles. Giggles into his cup of coffee and bubbles the liquid to the point it goes up his nose. 

“Nah, tell me what happened,” Jackson finally plops onto the opposite seat with a grin that clearly says ‘I cracked you, my dirty little gay friend’ and leans forward on his elbows, shamelessly shoving his face into Hyungwon’s. 

“He,” Hyungwon hiccups, snorting the coffee up his nose. “He kissed,” he bends in half in an angry coughing fit and only then tries to find his breath. Jackson’s face is as radiant as the sky in California. “He kissed my cheek,” Hyungwon finally wheezes out. 

Jackson’s smile disappears as fast as it came. “That’s it?”

“Yeah, well,” Hyungwon’s voice grows pitchy and airy in offense. He gets it, different perspectives and all that, but Jackson needs to see it in retrospect and place the kiss in, well, Hyungwon’s context. “It was a whole step forward, you know.”

“So you haven’t even banged yet?”

“No!” Here is a problem, Hyungwon is usually the kind to give amazing love advice. He helped Jackson, he helped Kihyun (although Kihyun doesn’t like admitting it), he helps Jooyeon on a daily basis with her work boy drama, he helped many-many of his friends to find their missing piece in the world. But the problem lies in the fact that Hyungwon absolutely hates other people prying him about his love life. Who he bangs, how he bangs, when he bangs, where he bangs, and how long he bangs stays with him and with him only. And, obviously, the second party. Or third, if such is present. 

Jackson slumps, ponders for a bit. He glances at Hyungwon’s furiously red face and a cartoon lamp ignites over his head. “Dude,” Jackson exhales. Eureka. “You’re fucking in love with him…”

Hyungwon breathes out two very distinctive syllables of ‘haha’. “No, what are you talking about,” he says, lips quivering. 

Jackson widens his eyes. “Dude…”

All of a sudden, Hyungwon jumps and bounces around the kitchen. The ‘hihi’ he wheezes is so clear he might as well voice a cartoon character. “He kissed my cheek!”

“And you’re still freaking out about it? At seven a.m.?” Jackson exclaims, voice laced with a different kind of incredulity. Judgemental incredulity, sort of. 

“Yeah, stayed up all night thinking about it.” Hyungwon dismisses and finishes his coffee in a few large gulps. 

“Wicked…” Jackson mumbles. 

The sound of Hyungwon’s love-stricken cackles hits so close to actual ‘hehe’ it’s like he plays the main role in the musical. 

20 days before Christmas.

_Now, tell me, young man, do you believe in God? Do you believe in the afterlife and redemption? And I’ll tell you why you should! Jesus, the son of God, died for all our sins, he died for adulterers, for idolatrists, for murderers, for rich and poor, for your family and loved ones, and the least you can do to pay him back for his gratuitous, courteous, heroic action is lead a good life, by following in the steps of Jesus Christ!_

Hyungwon grabs Changkyun by the elbow and speeds up his pace. “Wish these evangelists would leave me alone on Christmas, it’s the least they can do to repent for their mistakes,” he mumbles. 

Changkyun curves his eyebrows at him. “You hate Christmas.”

“Well, if we’re going with the whole Christmas and thanksgiving notion already, then I, too, have my rights to ask for a present, despite my inner despise for the concept of such.”

“Journalist talk again,” Changkyun stretches, waddling behind Hyungwon in attempts to catch up with his vainly long legs. 

Hyungwon suddenly stops. “I’m sorry.” He turns to Changkyun, to his sharp amused eyes and blood-coloured hair. Ah, all the possible metaphors he can make with it to piss off his favourite preachers. “I keep letting my compressed negative emotions get in the way of our pleasant pastime.” Changkyun rolls his eyes and smiles at the posh-talk. Hyungwon blooms from the inside seeing the other smile and stretches his elbow in invitation for Changkyun to take it. 

Changkyun wraps his hand around Hyungwon’s forearm in an already familiar way. “Pretty sure Freud had some psychoanalytical theory on compressed emotions and how they relate to sex, but I might be lying.”

“Oh, trust good ol’ Freud to find an explanation for everything psychological through sexual frustration. We are all angry little men because of our pent-up libido, and the only right way to get rid of it is to, you know, orgasm, so one might say we need to let the tension _come_ to be happy again.”

Changkyun snorts so loud it’s like torn tires screeched in his throat. “Thank God you’re not a psychology student.”

Hyungwon curves his eyebrows. “I beg to differ, God has nothing to do with my choice of major, I am a journalist because I believe in social revolution through media outlets, although recently I have less and less faith in humanity's intelligent capacity to correctly base their judgement on actual truth conditions.”

“There is no truth in the world, dude,” Changkyun says casually. Hyungwon wonders yet again if he is doing something wrong to still be in the damned dude-zone. It’s not like it’s not obvious that they meet up for non-platonic dates, at least, from Hyungwon’s side for sure.

“I disagree, my love, there might not be a lot of objective truths that everyone on this planet should live by, but there are tons of subjective truths that we individually confide in.”

“There will never be one true way for us to live, unless the difference is what we all strive for.”

“Then, what do you suggest, Changkyun?”

Changkyun turns to look at him with the eyes of a man who’s seen it all. “Anarchy.”

Hyungwon laughs. “You my precious little anarchist,” he notices the corners of Changkyun’s mouth curl at the nickname, “how do you plan on taking down the government?” 

“Eh, too soon to think about it. There is a lot of governments to take down, it will take years of planning.”

Hyungwon’s heart warms up at Changkyun’s languid tone. He realises that he learns more about the other guy not through the things he says, but through the things he doesn’t. If anything, the ironic hoodies he wears under his snakeskin jackets communicate more than the pompous glisten of the midday sun on his rough maroon leather. “I’ve went through the same nihilistic stage a couple of years ago, even wanted to write a speech on the topic, but then realised that I still prefer to view myself to be standing on a higher moral ground than the majority, which is arguably true if exclude my side hobby I took to get rid of my stuttering – which helped, actually! – because I found out that there is no bigger pleasure than spitting offensive opinions in the face of your enemies – anyways, that’s beside the point, so eventually I came to the conclusion that I can’t consider myself a nihilist when I have strong rooted values about non-material things, say, manners, or relationships, and that I care too much about life around me to call it meaningless, and – that really wasn’t where I was going, what were we talking about again?”

Changkyun laughs melodically, scrunching his nose. He is probably the most beautiful person in the world when he does that. “I think you spend too much time studying, you need to take it easy with the deadlines.”

“Hey, my love for Nietzsche has nothing to do with my Popular Culture and Politics essay I’ve been pegging to completion for the past month, maybe I’m just,” Hyungwon pouts a little, knowing the effect it has on Changkyun, “trying to be impressive,” he mutters lowly, tone sulky.

Changkyun cheerily lays his head on Hyungwon’s shoulder, rubbing his ear on the material of his coat. “Don’t be mardy, I think you’re good as you are.”

Hyungwon hopes Changkyun doesn’t see the smile that dumbly lits up his face. “Thank you, love.”

12 days before Christmas.

Eventually, there always comes a day when your love interest’s feelings about you become quite obvious, and Hyungwon swears he is ready to throw around genuine blessings after the realisation sinks in.

Hyungwon introduces Changkyun to Kihyun and Minhyuk after their very last Public Speaking event of the semester. 

“An’ I’m tellin ye, that bampot is pure useless withoot his swishy-swashy magic, all he does is blabber his geggy off until he gets slapped,” before Hyungwon can even open his mouth, Kihyun bounces in his seat, “oi, listen, I deh like the fucker, ye cannae fight me over my preferences.”

“Mate, I get it, you hate Benedict Cumberbatch, but Marvel’s overall idea of Strange is authentic to the masses of superheroes, take at least the fact that he is intelligent––”

“He is a total dickheid! ‘Kay, if ye wanna make it aboot magic, why not boast aboot Wanda?”

“Touché, she is good, but you know I hate female superheroes in comics because of their portrayal––”

“We’re talkin’ objectively here, yeah? She is strong, has cool magic, wears red an’ winnae hesitate to beat someone’s arse––”

“And I appreciate her for that, and she obviously goes into the top five, but you can’t objectively place Strange below T’Challa, whose power is literally just fighting – and ruling a country, I’ll give him that – but he is like the rest of the gang, while Strange has _magic_ , which ranks him better in terms of abilities.”

Kihyun clenches his teeth in a way that puffs his cheeks and makes him look like a hungry rodent. “Okay then, point taken, but why is the rest of the gang, whose only quirk is strength an’ fightin’, stand above ‘im?”

Hyungwon narrows his eyes. “Because they are the OG, my love, you can’t beat the dudes who could pick up Mjolnir, the fucking hammer of gods, in a battle because – because, Kihyun! – while Strange takes two seconds to conjugate his portal-shmortal, Steve Rogers needs a second to yeet his bloody shield at him. His magic is good but takes ages to actually come into action, but Wanda! Possess better magic. D’you catch up?”

“No need for check questions, bawbag, ye better answer me this – who’s on the top ay the list then?”

Hyungwon scoffs. “Captain Marvel, obviously, even the creators confirmed that.”

Minhyuk barks out a laugh. “Kihyun is giving you a stink-eye.”

“He wants me to be wrong,” Hyungwon slams his bony elbows on the table and abruptly leans forward and diagonally over the table, to face Kihyun better. He narrows his eyes. “But I know when I’m right.”

Kihyun mocks him with a squint of his own. “Yer still wrong aboot Benedict Cam––ugh, I cannae e’en say it.”

Hyungwon sighs in exasperation. “Stop going on about Benedict bloody Cumberbatch when he is not the case here! So what, I like enigmatic boys, I think he is neat, that’s my opinion.”

Kihyun looks nothing less scandalised. “D’ye really call that gremlin a ‘boy’?”

“Oi, Ki, as if you’re the one to talk,” Minhyuk interrupts. Kihyun gives him the kind of stare that only prompts him to continue if he wants immediate death. “You called Oscar Isaac your precious Latino support boy while watching an interview––”

“That happened one time!”

Before Hyungwon can jump on the bullying train, a laugh from across the table makes him whip his head faster than anything he’s ever done before in his life. Changkyun laughs so carelessly like he only laughs when Hyungwon makes a particularly good joke, although recently his standards for humour seem to have decreased. Hyungwon has noticed how Changkyun has started to allow himself to laugh louder and smile wider in his company, how his gestures have become more open and affectionate, how he became comfortable with Hyungwon’s tentative flirty lines. It’s as if he finally let his guard down to show Hyungwon that… that he likes it too? Whatever ‘it’ is that they’re doing.

Like he can finally afford to show Hyungwon that he is not actually as cool as he seems to be, and it’s okay because Hyungwon is so in deep that nothing can ever change his mind. 

And he knows Changkyun knows it because when he turns to look at him, he stumbles upon Hyungwon’s inarguably enchanted eyes and stops to appreciate how ridiculously whipped for him he looks. There are stars in Changkyun’s eyes. And they shine brighter when the corners of his mouth slowly spread in an innocent, gentle smile. Pure like freshly fallen snow. 

Hyungwon replies with the softest smile of his own and ignores the way Kihyun’s eyebrows pitifully curve at him.

11 days before Christmas.

Hyungwon is stupidly and undoubtedly in love with Changkyun. He doesn’t care how many weeks it’s been – he is in love enough to fantasise about kissing him before he falls asleep.

Faceless porn actors morphed into Changkyun, sappy love songs carry Changkyun’s name in them, puppies and snakes and space stuff and burgers and hoodies evoke memories of Changkyun, and Changkyun makes him tumble on his bed in a lovesick despair and heave the heaviest sigh at the end of each day.

Changkyun, Changkyun, Changkyun. Changkyunnie. Kyun. Kyunnie. Kyunnie-Goonie. LOML.

  
**icedcoffeeinnit**  
Good night xx  
I’ll see you tomorrow, love

**im_ckboi**  
night xxx  
can’t wait  
dont be late

Three kisses. Three. Hyungwon drops the phone on his chest and squeals like a dumb incomprehensible infant, drool and all. 

10 days before Christmas.

By the time Changkyun is done with his very last deadline of the semester, it’s grown dark. It’s dark, and cold, and gloomy, and yet Hyungwon patiently waits for him to submit everything right by his side. He’s nearly fallen asleep in the library, but Changkyun gently nudges him back to full consciousness. Hyungwon comes to a small gleeful smile. 

“Hey, should we go?”

Hyungwon wouldn’t mind waking up to such a sight every single morning. 

And although it’s dark, cold and gloomy and makes him sniff non-stop, Hyungwon still walks a good half hour from the town centre in the opposite direction from his home just to spend more time with a very happy and inspired Changkyun.

“I’m so ready to go clubbing now, I haven’t been out for the whole December, Jooheon even got mad at me – he thinks I’m neglecting him,” Changkyun chuckles. 

“What, he never studies, only parties?”

“Well, not really, he’s in the music college, so, you know, it’s easier.” 

Hyungwon notices they’ve got past yet another bus stop that should take Changkyun home, and quietly laments his own long way back. But, well, it’s quieter and warmer in the residential area of the town, where the houses are small, and the roads are empty and the trees grow all year round along the pedestrians. 

“Where do you actually like to go out the most? Never got to ask you that.”

Changkyun ponders for a second. “Depends on the day, honestly, probably _AURA_ because it’s cheaper and isn’t full of drunk students, but _Rodeo_ has to be the best club in town. And, it just so happened that I found most of my flings there in the smoking area, so,” he chuckles. Unconsciously or not, but their shoulders brush past each other.

“Ah, _Rodeo_ , exactly the place for students like us to get STDs in the toilets that haven’t seen a mop in so long the floors are still dusted with last year’s puke.”

“As gross as it is, you’re right. Vile place.”

“It was there when I asked for your Instagram, right?” Hyungwon knows he is right, but he feels like getting confirmation directly from Changkyun to lead the dialogue in the way he wants to.

“Yeah,” Changkyun chuckles again, lowering his head. “That was smooth. You do that often?” He looks at Hyungwon this time, eyes sparkling even in the dark, but Hyungwon doesn’t quite have the strength to look back at him directly. 

“No, not anymore,” Hyungwon breathes out a silent laugh. Should he just go for it? He should just go for it. “Well, I used to, you know, hookup a lot, but that was a while ago, when the whole concept of sexual liberty seemed new? Like, at some point I slept around so much I even thought I didn’t enjoy sex anymore because it was getting boring and unrewarding and all the same, and it always left me feeling a little empty. Yeah, not a fan of one-night stands anymore.”

“What about when you were in a relationship?” Hyungwon mentioned his exes a couple of times, like he mentions everyone he ever knows that figures in his stories because he has no filters when his tongue lets loose, but they somehow managed to keep the explicit details of their sexual lives to themselves. Well, the obscurer the fruit, the sweeter it is, innit. 

“To me, personally, it was better. I liked all my exes, that’s why.” Hyungwon sighs. “Call me old, but it was actually a healthy realisation that I’d rather have sex with someone I love and someone who loves me back because it means you both have a mutual goal of making the other person feel good. Maybe it’s because I’m twenty-two and a modern embodiment of a hag, but I’d rather feel my heart fluttering than fucking some eighteen-year-old who just found out about the perks of living away from their parents, I mean, I was the same back then, so I get it, but, don’t know, after all the meaningless hookups that do nothing but add to the body count, I realised that all I want is to be loved, and I would gladly wait for this feeling to bloom than blindly jump into a stranger’s bed – or the other way around, whichever – and then leave feeling ashamed or wake up the next morning ashamed and awkward and not good enough, but if you’re in love and you have someone who loves you back, and you, let’s say, gag, like, really loudly while giving head,” Changkyun laughs at this, and Hyungwon smiles too, “it doesn’t matter because you have the next time, and the next time, and the next until you’re so good at giving head you’re jealous of your partner.”

Changkyun quietly laughs again, head still lowered. “Yeah,” he says softly, “I agree.”

Hyungwon doesn’t expect any wise words from the other guy, doesn’t want to hear anything else on top of that, and so he takes the moment of silence to brush his freezing knuckles past Changkyun’s. Tentative, he bites on his lower lip, holds his breath, and feels Changkyun’s fingers softly bump against his own in return. His heart skips a beat and then picks up rapid speed. Hyungwon carefully moves his hand around Changkyun’s, idle fingertips blindly tapping his palm until they find the spaces between his fingers, and Hyungwon slowly slides his own until they interlock. They interlock. They _interlock_.

Although different in size, he thinks their hands fit against each other just perfectly. 

His heart is thrashing against his ribcage like a madman. Changkyun’s cold fingertips press against his knuckles, squeezing his palm, and his thumb softly runs along the curve of Hyungwon’s own. Bottom lip still trapped between his teeth, Hyungwon smiles. He is holding Changkyun’s hand.

And Changkyun is holding his hand back. 

He wants to say something, anything, release a giggle, a relieved exhale, but in the corner of his eye he sees Changkyun look up at him, eyes as usually sparkly and face so hopeful it’s almost vulnerable, and Hyungwon again doesn’t have the strength to look back at him. If he does, he might as well explode. 

Where they walk there is a fork in the road, and a small wall of dark bushes protects the house in the middle of the split. His heart is beating out a samba, a whole ballroom of samba full of high people in tap shoes who only know how to dance samba and nothing else. 

He stops, stops and finally turns to Changkyun, to his parted lips and eyes twinkling with anticipation. Hyungwon slowly turns them around, makes Changkyun’s back face the road, and takes a small step behind. And another, and another. Changkyun follows, a little confused, but doesn’t let go of his hand, in fact, he clutches it harder, as if to prevent Hyungwon from letting it go. 

Just another tiny step, and they’re off the sidewalk and in the frozen mud, two distorted patches blending into the wall of dark bushes. So late in the evening, no one will ever be able to see them, recognise them, stare at them. It’s Hyungwon who is staring down at Changkyun, big cartoon eyes gawking at the poor fella in search of definite approval, because if he doesn’t find it, he might as well break into a million glass pieces. 

There is absolutely nothing around them to reflect in Changkyun’s eyes, and yet they still softy shine, like two full moons hidden in the rain clouds at night. 

A surge of bravery, and Hyungwon parts his mouth. “Can I kiss you?” He quietly asks. There is a delicate frown between his eyebrows, making him look slightly distressed, but he is just really, really, really looking forward to hearing a yes. 

“Of course,” Changkyun replies just as quietly, if not quieter, and closes his lips, swallowing. Hyungwon’s heart does a leap, a loop and a triple lutz. He is going to kiss Changkyun. He is going to kiss Changkyun. Oh, dear, he is going to kiss Changkyun.

Hyungwon leans in torturously slowly. He takes the tiniest step forward, watches Changkyun’s face getting closer and closer, unblinking, feels his foggy breath escaping into cold air, counts every single star in his eyes. He looks at the outline of his nose, runs over the sharp curves of his thin and delicate top lip, gets lost in the pink lines on his bottom one. His eyes are blacker than the night sky. 

Changkyun never makes it easy for him. He is always waiting for Hyungwon’s next step, looks up at him and stands still, anticipates, tempts. Hyungwon carefully brings a free hand to Changkyun’s cheek, lets his thumb brush over the round cheekbone and under his eye. His skin is heavenly soft. When Hyungwon cranes his neck and exhales over Changkyun’s lips, he finally parts his mouth. The cold tips of their noses touch first.

Goodness gracious, he is about to kiss Changkyun.

And Hyungwon has always been the kind to take things slow and savour every second, even when at the end of the day it was meaningless and forgotten the next morning. But here is the problem; this kiss will probably be the most important kiss in humanity. Meaningful and to be remembered until the end of time.

Hyungwon closes his eyes and gently-gently, like a feather, lays his lips over Changkyun’s. 

Whether they stay frozen in the same position due to sinking realisation of their blooming romance or cold, is unclear, but Hyungwon doesn’t mind. Like angels, they timidly breathe in the tender touch of each other’s lips. Like angels, because it’s innocent and sentimental, blissful and divine. Like angels, because it’s unbelievable, the power with which Hyungwon’s heart is raging at such a simple childish touch. 

Oh, oh, _oh_ , he is really kissing Changkyun.

When Hyungwon carefully detaches and slightly-slightly parts his lips to let go of a shy foggy cloud of breath, Changkyun follows him as if enchanted, immediately connecting their lips together again. Hyungwon kisses, kisses as if Changkyun is frail, lets their mouths rest together for a moment and separates with the quietest of sounds. He feels Changkyun’s eyelids flutter through the flutter of his own; he hears every swallow, every inhale and exhale, sees the way his cherry lips part ever so slightly. 

And Hyungwon leans in again and kisses Changkyun’s bottom lip, presses himself close-close-close and holds on tighter. There is a questioning damp caress over his own top lip, and when Hyungwon opens up just enough to properly capture the other’s mouth, Changkyun kisses back. Slow and mellow and languid, tentative motions and held-back breaths. Their hands have long fallen to the sides in the moment of euphoria, and Hyungwon brings his palm to Changkyun’s waist, clutches the jacket like he intends on never letting go. 

But all angels eventually find themselves to have fallen. Give them a nominal eternity, and they will give up the innocence for something real, for something warm and something pleasing, and just like an angel's wings unfurling, their kiss grows louder, stronger, _divine_ in the most obscene sense of the word.

With a harsh inhale, Hyungwon tugs at Changkyun’s lips and brings him closer than possible, glues his hand under his jaw and forces him higher. He speeds up, gives a kiss after kiss and after kiss again and finally opens his mouth, lining up their lips and connecting Changkyun’s movements with his. Before he can even take the initiative, Changkyun’s tongue is already searching for his own. 

It scares him like a wake-up call when a yellow light of an approaching bus slides over Changkyun’s face. It’s gloomy, too far to properly illuminate, but in the safe darkness of the naked bushes it ruins the flow of their kiss like a dam. Hyungwon flinches back, opens his eyes and stares at Changkyun like he sees him for the first time. He doesn’t want to name exactly what he is searching for on his face, but, granted, the unwelcomed source of light lets him see the other’s delicately flushed cheeks and glistening lips. His face is tiny, squished between Hyungwon’s palms. 

Changkyun seems just as shaken about being brought back to earth after the short heavenly trip to La La Land. 

“My bus is here,” he exhales. 

“It is,” Hyungwon whispers back.

“I have to go,” Changkyun says it like he really doesn’t want to go. The stars in his eyes form galaxies. And as subtle as only Changkyun can be, Hyungwon knows he is on cloud nine. 

“You do,” Hyungwon echoes. 

Then Changkyun softens with the smallest smile of endearment and twists his head enough to leave a peck on Hyungwon’s freezing palm. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says quietly and promisingly and frees himself from the cold hold of Hyungwon’s hands. 

Enchanted and still a little out of it, Hyungwon shuffles around. Changkyun is clumsily running for the bus in his massive trainers and fit trousers and gigantic jacket with a backpack carelessly flung over his shoulder, and Hyungwon only sees an angel he doesn’t even believe in.

“Thank you,” he somehow manages to push out of himself loud enough for Changkyun to hear, and when Changkyun turns around, his mouth spreads in a wide beaming smile.

“You too,” he shouts back and hops the remaining distance to the bus, leaving Hyungwon alone in the dark of the street, the name of which he wouldn’t be able recall under any circumstances.

9 days before Christmas.

Hyungwon is desperately and irreparably in love with Changkyun, and he is all he can ever think about.

He gathers the courage to ask Changkyun to date him.

Changkyun says ‘yeah’. 

7 days before Christmas.

If anyone’s wondering if Hyungwon walking Changkyun miles to his nearest bus stop is a routine, then yes, it has become a necessity long ago. Especially after a meeting they both called a date. Both. _Both_. 

The long residential street with nothing but little patches of greenery and small two-storey cottage houses has found its own symbolic meaning in Hyungwon’s life, and he learned to love it. It’s a good street. Boring, but good in its familiarity and endless and endless equivocal dates Hyungwon and Changkyun had.

Maybe because it’s quiet. Maybe Hyungwon loves it because it’s quiet, and all he can do is shift his undivided attention on Changkyun, the love of his fucking life.

“So I was like, Hoseok, did you know that boys can like boys and girls can like girls, and sometimes girls and boys love both, and he gave me the widest eyes I’ve ever seen him make. One might say I’m defiling my child but I also disagree with how eight-year-olds pressure other eight-year-olds into liking someone, I mean, they’re in the elementary school, what do they expect?”

Changkyun snorts. “I was such a weird child in elementary––”

“No,” Hyungwon interrupts, “I bet all my savings from my placement year I was the weirdest and ugliest child you’ve ever seen, even my stepdad agreed. My stepdad! Peak.”

“Alright, I need proof.”

“No-o-o-o, I don’t keep such monstrosities saved anywhere, only my parents have the original physical copies of my school albums.” Changkyun’s hand is wrapped around Hyungwon’s elbow, and they’re walking leisurely to the cursed bus stop. 

It’s still bright outside, just barely past lunchtime, and the surrounding greyness illuminates every single little flaw on Changkyun’s face. Hyungwon tenderly realises that he loves them – slightly unsmooth cheeks, tired folds under his eyes, a tiny patch of stubble on his chin, a dry crack on his bottom lip, fine long ungroomed hairs of his eyebrows and black roots peeking on the top of his cherry-coloured head. 

Hyungwon is so terribly whipped he forgot Christmas was coming.

When they finally reach the goddamn bus stop, they stop just next to it and look at each other, anticipating something. For Hyungwon, it’s a public goodbye kiss, for Changkyun… hell knows what, but he looks a little nervous, a feeling he doesn’t usually express. 

Hyungwon lays his hands on Changkyun’s cold cheeks anyways and leans in. The kiss they share is wholesome and chaste and appropriate for the streets, but when Hyungwon detaches, Changkyun’s eyes are still closed. His delicate eyelashes flutter before he glances up. Not a day goes by without Hyungwon drowning in the deep dark cups of his coffee-coloured irises. They are steamed, hazy. Hyungwon’s thumb gently brushes his cheekbone. 

“Do you…” Changkyun starts, lips still frozen in the shape of the tender kiss. “I was wondering if you want to,” for a moment of silence, Changkyun looks out of breath. He is always breathtaking, but when he is breathless in the state he is in now, he puts all of Hyungwon’s inner functions to a stop. “My parents aren’t home almost the entire day on Saturday, do you want to come over?”

And if Hyungwon was already taken by Changkyun, after the fateful invitation comes out of his mouth, he is fully smitten, crushed, dead. It’s a simple question, and yet Hyungwon allows a little teasing wave of something hot slid down his body and pool in his belly. They could come over to Hyungwon’s any time, he lives in the most distant room in his flat and he’s got his own toilet and a small double bed, but no, a student flat is not romantic enough, not historical enough, not… silencing enough. 

At the end of the day, Changkyun’s home is a pastor’s house, and thus is a house of worship. God, the ambiguous beauty of those words.

Saturday is the day after tomorrow. Hyungwon suspects he might get blue balls just thinking about what Changkyun’s words really insinuate. 

“Yeah,” he breathes out, absently stroking Changkyun’s cheek in the wake of his vulgar daydream. One might even say, for the sake of a joke, in the arousal of his vulgar daydream. 

Then Changkyun smiles and all of Hyungwon’s being melts like yolk out of broken eggshells. “Then I’ll text you the address and see you there,” he says, and something sharp and impish twists his lips. The twinkle of familiar amusement is back in his eyes, the same kind of unrestrained glee that appears when Hyungwon looks so whipped that every resident in the neighbourhood and their dog knows about his shameless affection. 

Back in the town centre, Hyungwon walks the dirty slippery pavement with uncharacteristic ease, as if winged with joy and delight and love for the entire world, although it’s still December.

_I just want you for my own  
More than you could ever know  
Make my wish come true  
All I want for Christmas is you_

Mariah Carey is blasting from the speakers in every shop he flies past, and for the first time in millenia, Hyungwon finds himself bopping to the song without a worry on his mind. 

A homeless man treads too close to him with a super-mega unfriendly face, a child is crying bitter tears over an unbought present, his bus is late, the roadworks are drilling hellishly loud, a herd of kids and a pack of tourists rush by speaking their tongues, McDonalds is stinking the air with death and potatoes, and all Hyungwon can think about is the opportunity to finally see Changkyun naked, at long last. 

He awkwardly bounces on his next step at the happy thought. 

5 days before Christmas.

A moment’s silence. 

A moment’s silence is what Hyungwon experiences when Changkyun greets him at the door.

A blissful state of prickling excitement that causes his mind to black out when he perceives it all with new eyes: he is in Changkyun’s house, all made-up and twice showered, dressed in his best suit jacket and fidgeting with a small bouquet of red roses in his hands. And he is absolutely blacked out, absent from the real world, because the only world he cares about is Changkyun’s loose black jeans and a huge sweater and Venom socks––oh, God, Hyungwon has never seen him without his shoes on. 

He looks smaller than ever when only standing on the flat soles of his feet. 

It’s a strangely inspiring thought when Hyungwon realises that he fell for a fragment of a human he deemed most important – for personality. He knew the rest in shards – a fraction of his facial expression, a fraction of his voice, a fraction of his behaviour, a fraction of his body. Unknowingly, he fell without needing to see it all; fell with an unconscious belief that once he learns what is underneath the surface, what is, as his good pal Freud would say, below the tip of the iceberg, he will only fall harder. 

“Come in,” Changkyun says, amusement apparent in his voice, and lets Hyungwon inside.

In the middle of shrugging off his shoes and coat, Hyungwon suddenly comes back to his senses. “Oh, right, here,” he extends the bouquet of flowers, which Changkyun takes with a cute little smile where the tip of his tongue peeks between the teeth. “Thought it was rude coming over empty-handed, I hope you like roses.” Hyungwon thins his lips in a polite smile, and Changkyun huffs out a laugh at his timid expression. 

“Thank you,” and then he stands on his tiptoes and lightly pecks Hyungwon on the lips. 

After an eternity and a half of being single, Hyungwon forgot what it meant to be in a relationship where kisses substitute ‘thank you's and ‘I love you’s and practically any emotion there is.

Changkyun chuckles and nods in the direction of the small hall they are in. “Come on.” When Hyungwon finally disregards his outdoors, he follows Changkyun inside the house. “Welcome to our humble abode.”

Their house is indeed humble. It only has one floor, excluding the attic, and all the rooms are accessible through the hall they’ve crossed in ten steps. There are a few locked doors, probably bedrooms, the living room with a small Christmass tree, the bathroom, and at the end of the corridor is a sharp left turn to the kitchen. Hyungwon takes a seat by the table and admires Changkyun taking care of the flowers.

“Did you get here okay?” He asks, cutting the stems.

“Yeah, all our endless walks from town paid off, I’m practically a local.” Changkyun laughs, still looking at the red head of the roses like they’re the prettiest flowers he’s ever seen. Hyungwon knows he is radiating a weird energy. He isn’t blabbering his life away about the mundane adventures he’s had on the bus, doesn’t comment on painting on the wall and a little icon of the Virgin Mary in the corner and mistletoes on the cupboard doors. There is a rice cooker on the counter, and a red coffee machine, and also a small display of pretty china in the glass cupboard. There are magnets on the fridge, photographs pinned underneath them, words and letters forming the most obscene sentences that were most likely composed by Changkyun, but Hyungwon isn’t too inclined to stand up and study the pictures. 

_n a k e d dog lick s sausage and big breasts  
by k y u n boy e_

Shakespeare has never writ for Changkyun weaves better rhymes than the old English legend could ever dream of.

“You want coffee? Tea?” Changkyun asks, finally putting the roses in the vase.

Hyungwon does want coffee, he wants a lot of coffee, he must stay in this world and not slip into the vulgar daydreams he’s been trying to tame for the past couple of days, but he refuses because it is a waste of time. 

The Hyungwon of yesterday would never refuse a cup of coffee. 

The Hyungwon of today is a rebirthed man who is driven by desires even God can’t explain. “So where do you reside?” The Hyungwon of today is a brave man who looks into Changkyun’s amused eyes with shameless openness. There is a good side to looking like a dreamy anime boy – no one can ever read the impurity on Hyungwon’s face for the soft lines of his features mask the indecency with innocence. 

Changkyun knows how to look beyond it.

“Let me show you.” Once the flowers are proudly standing in the middle of the table, Changkyun leads them back to the top of the corridor and opens the door closest to the entrance. 

There is a whirl of thoughts and images that ravage Hyungwon’s mind so quickly he blacks out as soon as he enters the room.

He realises immediately that this hasn’t always been a chamber with the sole purpose of sleeping. The bed on the right is not a bed but a sofa-bed that is only currently fully converted into a bed with messily tucked in white sheets and couch pillow by the leather header. The box arms are used as nightstands – there are glasses, cups and pills barely balancing on the surface. There is a working desk opposite, but it’s old, really old, and rather small, and antique bookshelves line along the wall in front of it. There is an abraded ornament rug on the floor and a collection of Star Wars figurines on the window sill. 

And Hyungwon wouldn’t give the whole decor much thought if it wasn’t for the bookshelf on the wall opposite the door, standing a few feet away from the edge of the bed. The shelf fully, entirely, utterly filled with Orthodox icons and prayer books and candles, as if a local church dropped its whole archive of religious thingamabobs at the pastor’s home for storage and safe-keeping and, in Hyungwon’s honest opinion, exorcism ceremonies for atheists. 

It was this lewd exhibition of holiness that made Hyungwon’s mind capsize and think the most obscene, perverted, filthy things he could do for the sake of rebellion. 

“Yeah, don’t mind the freaky display,” Changkyun rolls his eyes good-naturedly. “My parents used this room for storage, study and counseling before I moved in, it was the only spare room they had.”

Hyungwon resists a whistle as he steps in and walks to the holy bookshelf, feels the saints’ lifeless eyes boring a hole in him, burning him, criticising him. Having the face of angel doesn’t necessarily make you one, he proudly thinks and stares at the golden images with a challenge.

Ah, he really is leading mental dialogues with figures he doesn’t even believe in.

“Damn, how do you masturbate in here?” The question escapes his mouth before he can shut it, but upon turning around with tangled apologies on his tongue, he sees Changkyun snorting, sharp amusement so-so clear in his eyes it scares Hyungwon a little. 

“With a big naughty grin,” Changkyun responds. 

Hyungwon notices the door is already shut. 

Changkyun is standing by the foot of the unfolded sofa-bed, and with another quick storm of impure images flashing before his eyes, Hyungwon feels something tugging at the very core of his being. The steps he takes towards Changkyun seem torturously slow but maybe that’s good. With stolen breaths, Hyungwon recycles the dormant fantasy of kissing Changkyun so deep, so good, so wet, it would put a big fat full stop in the universe and rewrite the time from the moment they crash like waves against eroding rocks. The most fateful, the most important kiss in humanity, in all nations and all cultures and all religions and all cults. 

Changkyun’s lips are already parted by the time Hyungwon reaches him and puts a hand on his cheek. From the sheer look in Changkyun’s eyes, arousal streams down Hyungwon’s body in manic urgency. From the sheer want and attraction and appreciation and desire in Changkyun’s eyes, Hyungwon is a saint for he is blessed to be on the receiving end of such beauty. 

Hyungwon covers the cherry-coloured lips with his. He keeps them parted and kisses delicately, tight and palpable but not without softness. All that exists right now is their mouths moving slowly against each other in a relaxed rhythm, languid, self-indulgent, sharing sensuality on the outer level. There is no need to hurry; Jesus may enjoy the spectacle. 

Changkyun’s arms come up to rest on Hyungwon’s shoulders, fingers interlocking on his nape, keeping him close and steady as they dive further and further into the pool of idle pleasure. There is so much mental satisfaction in kissing, on top of physical. Hyungwon prides himself in being able to taste the thin pretty lips of the guy he loves, keens at the eager responses to his manipulations, catches himself on the realisation that he doesn’t need to wonder how long it’s been and where to go next because with Changkyun, it can be anything.

Any rhythm, any structure, any colour, any mood, any tonality, like a musical piece that flows despite the contrasts and weaves improvised patterns of beats. They kiss in manic rhapsody, lips exploring each other with curiosity, slow and lingering, quick and loud. Hyungwon captures Changkyun’s bottom lip between his, lightly nibbles on it with his teeth, chews softly as if with the intention to eat him alive. Changkyun sucks on Hyungwon’s top lip and loses himself in the curve that he can’t wait to explore. 

It used to embarrass Hyungwon, the thickness he didn’t know who he inherited from. But there is greatness to his plump shape and radical curve he tends to hide – as long as he keeps his tongue at bay, his lips alone provide so much entertainment for exploring, the average duration of a makeout doubles with endless possibilities.

Changkyun can bite on them until they bleed, do it again and again to evoke a hiss, he can suck on them like a lollipop, kiss across and along and around until Hyungwon’s mouth is swollen, and he can indulge himself in it for as lo-o-o-o-o-ong as he wants.

And when he is done, he reaches for what’s inside. Changkyun’s snakes his tongue between Hyungwon’s lips, slides between the rows of teeth and prompts his mouth open. Changkyun inhales sharp and abrupt when their tongues meet for the first time, and Hyungwon almost jerks at the pleasing sensation on the tip. Arousal downpours from his stomach to his growing erection, manifests itself in a soft noise that leaves his throat and tightens along with fingers on Changkyun’s waist. 

The haywire rhythm builds up again, playful tongues sliding along each other and sending spark after spark of pleasure to their groins. Changkyun’s fingers tug at Hyungwon’s longer locks at the back of his head with almost anxious urge, and Hyungwon’s hands slide down his torso until they find the hem of Changkyun’s endless sweater. 

He is sure Changkyun can feel his crotch pressing to his lower stomach. 

At the same time as Hyungwon’s fingers creep under the shirt to touch the soft sides (for the first time, for the first time he is touching Changkyun’s skin somewhere other than his hands), his mouth detaches from the other’s too. Hyungwon casts a short glance at his red, swollen lips and at the softest blush on his cheeks, and mindfully averts looking into his eyes. If he does, he doesn’t know what will happen, but one thing for sure – he doesn’t want to pounce Changkyun as if he is some thoughtless prey. 

He wants to take his time and kiss him everywhere he can reach, grant him love and affection and appreciation, worship him like the setting is telling him to. 

Hyungwon kisses along Changkyun’s jaw and curls his spine and moves down to his neck, to his very delicate and tender neck, where his pulse is beating out a rapid rhythm and his Adam’s apple rises and falls with each hungry gulp of air. It’s truly a pleasure knowing Changkyun is just as affected by dizzying kissing as Hyungwon is. 

Suddenly, Changkyun’s knees buckle when Hyungwon licks a stripe up his throat column, and he holds back a gasp, clutching the back of Hyungwon’s collar as if to keep himself steady. 

“Mm?” Hyungwon straightens and, without looking, kisses Changkyun’s cheek and temple, chaste and gentle as if to calm down a child. 

But Changkyun finds his eyes; forces his head up and looks right into him, lids hooded and glow of arousal murky and seducing. Tempting. In the way only Changkyun can be, his temptation personified.

“Sit on the bed,” he whispers lowly, as if through a barrier that helps him hold back the desperation in his voice. 

Hyungwon obeys ridiculously easily, plops on the edge of the bed and doesn’t even manage to steady his breath when Changkyun straddles his hips. His fingers tangle in Hyungwon’s long locks with now familiar harshness, and his mouth is back on his, exploring the cavity with his tongue, fervent, enthusiastic, exactly like Hyungwon pictured him in a sexual setting.

And so he allows himself to do what he reserved until this very moment – move his hands to the curve of Changkyun’s small firm bum. He digs his blunt nails into the hard jean fabric, feels the solid flesh barely give way under the pressure, squeezes as much of the halves as he can. Changkyun encourages him with raspy hums against his mouth. 

Hyungwon wants to taste them reverberate in his throat, so he leaves a trail of wet kisses down to the hollow between his clavicles, where the collar of his sweater hides the rest, the sacred temple of his body. He clutches the hem of the shirt, getting ready to pull it over Changkyun’s head and recite the perfect prayers of appraisal into his skin. 

As warm fingers slide under the fabric, Hyungwon’s mouth and teeth and tongue draw the first rose on the side of his neck, crimson and mauve. Changkyun’s breath hitches in his first moan, and his legs jerk at the light bite.

“Softer?” Hyungwon mutters into his skin, immediately soothing the fresh bruise with a gentle-gentle kiss. His hands stroke Changkyun’s soft sides under the sweater; he feels his stomach tense at the feathery touch. 

“Keep going,” Changkyun orders in a hoarse voice, as if it hurts him to remain so composed, as if one more kiss can throw him over the edge, and in turn throw Hyungwon off the bed and out of the window with the most intense, love-stricken boner he’s ever had in his life. 

So Hyungwon keeps going, caresses Changkyun’s sides and lower back, slides his hands up the warm spine, exploring, learning every curve and bone to build a shrine for later. A new rose blooms on the side of his neck, and Hyungwon finally tugs the sweater up his body. Changkyun helps, raises his arms up, and Hyungwon can feel his heavy gaze on himself but he doesn’t have the strength to look up – he will never have the strength to look up, and he doesn’t really want to either. Once he blindly discards the sweater on the floor, there is everything he ever wanted right in front of his eyes. 

He is used to nudity being impersonal. When he was younger, barely after losing his virginity, a sight of someone’s naked body, the feel of his own naked body, induced timid shivers and furious blushing, made him tremble slightly at the thought of being exposed and learning someone else at their most vulnerable. He didn’t notice when the process of taking off one’s clothes became a routine, and a vain exposure of skin was just another step he had to go through to get what he wanted. He suddenly didn’t care. He restricted himself overall glances and moved straight to business, because the others never wanted to take their sweet time, because when there was no feelings involved, it didn’t matter how appreciated the other people felt, and he could never quite spontaneously fall in love after uncovering a person’s most intimate. 

Granted, Hyungwon has longed deemed Changkyun the love of his fucking life, and the mere sight of his little chest and even littler nipples makes his heart skip a beat and his mouth water with a new flood of wet kisses he has yet to give. 

Hyungwon caresses the soft waist, gently takes him around the ribcage and strokes over the lower bones that stretch the skin with every heavy inhale. Changkyun’s small tummy is endearingly rolled behind the waistband of his jeans, but it grows tense when he straightens and puffs up his chest to ease the access for Hyungwon, and Hyungwon instead drags his fingers to the well broad back and attaches his mouth to the thinnest, curviest clavicle he’s ever seen. 

He bites and sucks on the bone a little like a starving dog, but he doesn’t care when another bruise blossoms on his skin. Hyungwon kisses down the small firm chest and yet again blindly finds the tiny nipple bud with his mouth and gives it a careful, trying lick. Changkyun inhales. Hyungwon’s fingers unconsciously dig harder into the skin of his back and he takes the bud into his mouth, kisses around it, sucks it in and teases it with his tongue until he hears Changkyun hum airily at the sensation. 

And Hyungwon wants to carry it on, busy himself with the second nipple and paint Changkyun’s entire torso with colourful hickeys, but as he slides his hands over the expanse of his back, he feels a subtle, barely there bump on his skin that extends suspiciously over his entire shoulder blade. Hyungwon detaches himself from Changkyun’s chest, straightens and looks him in the eyes, conveying a sudden spark of confusion that strikes him. Changkyun’s gaze is dark and heavy and lustful but slightly resigned, as if he is about to roll his eyes. Hyungwon frowns and moves his hands to his shoulders, forcing Changkyun to bend forward enough for Hyungwon to see his back. 

What he discovers is a big, colourful tattoo taking over half of Changkyun’s back, red flowers and black leaves and a long, crystal dagger drawn along his spine with a thin line of text on his left shoulder. He never knew Changkyun had a massive, magnificent tattoo other than the smiley face on his wrist. When was the motherfucker going to tell him?

“You have a tat,” Hyungwon whispers dumbly, fingers tracing delicate lines of red petals and the outline of the sharp blade. 

Changkyun forcefully detaches himself from Hyungwon’s chest, his eyes glint with a note of frustration, deep pools of coffee whirl with impatience and arousal and everything so deadly tempting Hyungwon gulps. 

“There’s a time for that later,” he mutters and bumps into Hyungwon’s mouth with a vehement kiss. That works the trick – Hyungwon immediately forgets about the damn tattoo and gets reminded about the hard-on that Changkyun brushes past with his own. It’s all that exists for him, the heat of the other’s skin under his palms, the staggered breaths against his cheek, the sharp nails scratching at his stomach. “Come on,” Changkyun exhales and almost rips Hyungwon’s shirt with the strength with which he pulls it up and over his head. 

And then immediately, Changkyun’s hands are on skin, scratching over his flat chest and protruding ribs, studying him like he is an actual meal. Well, he is at best a gourmet plate in a French haute cuisine restaurant, a single bowl out of multi-course kaiseki dinner, a molecular gastronomical experiment – magnificent and aesthetic to the point of crying but barely fulfilling without the rest. The rest, as Changkyun has guessed, hides where his hands are currently trying to undo the zipper. 

There is a sudden spike of adrenaline burning in Hyungwon’s veins, a coil tightens in his stomach, gasoline fills his lungs. He feels dead eyes watching him, golden paint flickering in the weak daylight, Latin curses floating in the vacuum of this room, and something absolutely heretical settles in Hyungwon’s mind. He pulls Changkyun in an aggressive kiss, moves his mouth like it’s the last time he’ll ever get to kiss someone, and drags him down with him as he falls back on the mattress. 

Before they lie down, Hyungwon opens one eye and looks back at the icons as if they were his mortal enemies. He realises that the weight in their eyes is just abject apathy, dead indifference to their sinful acts, and grins with one corner of his mouth in sudden ambition to fuel their jealousy. They can never have what Hyungwon and Changkyun have, but hell knows they crave. 

Changkyun pins him down on the bed, towering over him on his knees and elbows, littering kisses all over his neck and chest, nibbling, sucking, tasting everything he can. That’s all that exists; Hyungwon feels his mouth travelling down to his stomach in a trail of burns, stinging his skin like wax dripping from a candle. 

Their eyes meet when Changkyun gets to the waistband of his jeans and sits on the floor between his legs, his breath fanning over the clothed bulge and hands temptingly dancing along his thighs to his knees. Hyungwon is lost and brainless, just a dumb flatfish scavenging on the bottom of the ocean, lost in the whirl of Changkyun’s tsunami. 

...Metaphors are clearly not working in his favour when he is this taken by the guy hovering over where he is most sensitive.

Suddenly, Changkyun grabs him under his knees and forcefully hauls him closer towards himself so abruptly Hyungwon accidentally yelps. And Changkyun doesn’t break the eye contact, hands working over the zipper with practiced ease, and when he pulls the sides apart, Hyungwon hisses. His heartbeat picks up as if on coke, every nerve ending inflames even by the mere shadow of Changkyun’s fingers hovering over him. Hyungwon is only vaguely aware of the unflattering angle from which the other is looking at him, and his thoughts grow vaguer and vaguer and quieter and quieter when Changkyun drags his jeans down enough to let his erection breath.

A thin layer of fabric is all that’s separating them from… from… from the most important sacred act of love in humanity, from the coition of souls and union of ungodly bodies, from physical connection that grants confirmation of feelings unknown to those who despise it. Oral sex, blowjob, shag, sodomy, sin, crime – they call it what they want, Hyungwon doesn’t care. _This_ is the religious act that shall never be sacriliged. When Changkyun pulls back the stained underwear and takes Hyungwon into his hand, when he looks at him like he is ready for commitment, when he looks at _him_ with affection and appreciation and want – this is what Hyungwon prays for. 

He is pious in his own way; devoted to the feeling he can never ever be cynical about from now and forever on. Heavy gaze and warm palm and blushing cheeks and swollen lips, genuine emotions he is allowed to see, the only person in the world worthy of such sentiments, not a body but a person at the will of another person and – god. Perhaps Changkyun has made him a believer. 

Hyungwon gasps.

Everything stops, freezes, ceases to exist when the warmth covers him at the core of his being, the constant hum and wandering eyes turn into black nothingness, he sees and hears and feels and wants just once thing in the blissful absence of the world around him. A moment’s silence finally dawns when his baby puts his mouth on him. 

The universe gains clarity as soon as Changkyun kisses the glistening tip, and every prickle of the world’s worst and best is gathered in the ends of his inflamed nerve endings, blissfully, terribly sensitive. Nothing matters, nothing matters at all because Changkyun gathers the precum with his lips and his soft tongue, tasting him, tasting Hyungwon as if every part of him is sugar and roses, and maybe with all the feelings Changkyun nurtures for him – he is. 

Maybe he is the last blooming flower on the eve of winter, maybe he is a glass figurine of a springtime bird, maybe he is watercolour painting of a sea in the everlasting summer, maybe he is inherently precious and immortally beautiful but in the hold of Changkyun’s hands – fully at his will. He gives him his everything, his arousal, his expression of pleasure, his downward bloodstream and burning skin. Hyungwon swears he’s never been this hard and sensitive in his entire life; he feels like he is falling apart and sticks back together over and over again at the mere touch of Changkyun’s lips on the tip and feathery fingertips on the base.

Relief and ache start working interchangeably. At every light sensation Hyungwon gasps at the eventual pleasure, but the touch is never palpable enough to satisfy it, to please the tense nerves like they ache for. Changkyun sucks on the tip delicately, still tasting and tasting as Hyungwon keeps dripping and dripping, and his scratchy fingertips travel up and down his balls, forcing them to jerk and causing Hyungwon to do a full-body flinch.

Every single noise that ever existed in Hyungwon’s head turns into a religious mantra of Changkyun’s name. Changkyun, Changkyun, Changkyun, he is taking me into his mouth, he is touching me, he is blowing me, he is tasting me, he is smelling me, he is looking at me, he is looking at _me_ , and Hyungwon’s heart drops when Changkyun raises his eyes, lips still wrapped around the head of his cock.

His cheeks are hollowed and his mouth is stretched forward, and Hyungwon can only call him beautiful and lick over his lips at the desperate want, at how hot and fuckable his boyfriend looks, at how much he wants to give him everything and take everything from him in return. Changkyun grips the base of his shaft, the pointer finger and the thumb not quite meeting in the right place, and envelopes him further, slides his mouth down slowly, does it easily with slicked up lips. 

Hyungwon tries to ground himself, doesn’t want to disturb Changkyun’s controlling flow, but the deeper he dives into the damp warmth, the more he wants to move. Changkyun moves back up, takes a breath and suckles on the tip again, his sweet mouth drawing more arousal and strength out of Hyungwon. His rosy lips glimmers with precum and spit, his tongue flickers over the slit, sending sparks of electricity down Hyungwon’s body, and then lie flat over his length again, calming the rising wave of pleasure. 

Changkyun takes him deeper again, incredibly mindful of his teeth. His hand slowly strokes where he can’t reach, where Hyungwon is burning under the warmth of his palm, and his other hand is idly tracing patterns on his naked skin, on his hip bones, on his sides. Changkyun travels up and down a few more times, and when he slides down again, he swallows around the length, and Hyungwon gasps at the feel of his tight throat contracting around him. Then Changkyun finds a stable rhythm, bops his head as he sucks Hyungwon along the length, the hand around the shaft speeding up as well to match his mouth. 

The pleasure starts pounding, heat melting all over his cock and bubbling when his tip comes in contact with the warm throat. Hyungwon releases a quiet moan, overwhelmed with his own arousal and love for the one who makes him feel that way. His hips thrust into Changkyun’s mouth involuntarily, struck with a sudden spark of pleasure on some molecular level.  
Changkyun doesn’t let him do that again. He grips his hips with both hands, stabilising Hyungwon on the bed, and goes down on him faster, almost aggressive. 

Hyungwon chokes out a desperate moan more at the image in front of his than at the feel. His stomach tenses and jerks at the continuous sensations, restless but useless, as more sex fills in the space of their room of worship. A bit of Changkyun’s saliva trickles down Hyungwon’s length into the dark curls of hair, his cock disappears with wet sounds and comes out slick and hot and painfully flushed, Changkyun’s eyes are murky with lust and perhaps his own desperation. But he keeps going, keeps going so well and so diligently, his frustration is only palpable in the almost-goans at the back of his throat and his nails digging into Hyungwon’s skin.

God, please, Hyungwon is ready to pray. He has always been the tricky kind, lasting longer in any situation, taking and giving things slowly and with taste, striving to see and hear the sex in addition to the rapid sensations. But love makes his pleasure agonising, tearing him between prolonging the release for the sake of watching Changkyun take him so good for longer and aching for it. He wants to pay his gratitude in coming well and thick and return the favour with same intensity – no, it’s not a favour. It’s the purest expression of love humanity starves to understand, it’s a gesture of equality despite it being looked at as an abuse of authority, it’s a common tongue of sex that’s shared between those who know it lovingly.

It’s a blessing to be able to come at the hands of the one you love. 

Hyungwon is at Changkyun’s will, and Changkyun understands it and commits to the act with stubborn desire. He grips Hyungwon’s clothed knees and throws them over his shoulders, wraps one hand around the thigh and bops his head harder, almost breathless. His other hand is back on the shaft, and although it’s an uncomfortable position, he jerks Hyungwon off quick and steady as he lingers on the tip again after the upstroke.

His tongue does wonders. It works fast as Changkyun laps on the cockhead, the skin of it so painfully flushed it is as if it’s about to burst, and Hyungwon really does feel like bursting, exploding, shuttering on the inside. His legs tremble, the pleasure pounds red inside his mind and tightens in his organ, he grows impossibly stiff and heavy and desperate and he sniffs.

“Kyun,” he mewls, face distorting in a silent cry. 

Changkyun understands him, sucks on him hard and thick one last time and moves away. His hands comes up to the tip, and he aims at his face, at his own fucking face, and strokes Hyungwon to absolute completion. 

His mind blacks out, everything disappears, his thought, his cognition, his logic, his reason, it all melts and storms out of his body in a flaming wave. He comes on Changkyun’s face in pearls rosaries, his nose, his cheek, his lips and his tongue, gifts him everything his orgasm strikes him with, everything understood in the common tongue of love – with hitched cries and uncontrollable shudders, with gnawing fingers and last spasms of pleasure. 

Hyungwon’s body melts and relaxes, and the relief finally coddles him, cools down his still twitching cock and lays a hand on his heaving chest. For a moment, nothing around him exists other than the pleasing aftershocks of his orgasm. The best orgasm of his sex life. 

He vaguely realises his legs have dropped from Changkyun’s shoulders; he realises with insane clarity that there are beads of cum all over Changkyun’s face. The streak that landed on his tongue he swallowed. Hyungwon looks him in the eyes and almost hears him begging, begging for something in addition to his own release. It’s speaking with a tearful glint in his steamed coffee cups, with slightly quivering lips and furious blush on his cheeks. And yet his face is hard, committed. Hyungwon’s stomach grows heavy at the sight, at the realisation that his very pretty boyfriend is still sitting on his knees between his legs with drops of cum drying in the hairs of his eyebrow. Still sitting in front of his softening cock. 

Hyungwon doesn’t know what drags him to do it but he reaches for Changkyun’s face, gently caresses his cheek as a praise for the job well done. With a thumb he wipes a streak of white residue off his skin and without thinking, brings it to Changkyun’s lips. It comes as a surprise when he opens his mouth readily, as if that’s all he’s been waiting for, as if that’s the thanks he needed, and captures Hyungwon’s thumb between his lips. That sweet babe, he suckles on it with subtle enjoyment, eyes closed, and releases the digit slick and glistening with his saliva. The heaviness starts to pour into Hyungwon’s groin again, but he promises to keep himself grounded and give his boyfriend what he deserves first. 

He wipes a few beads of cum from Changkyun’s eyebrow, from under his eyes, his chin and the corner of his mouth, and prods his lips with his stained fingertips. Changkyun takes the two fingers into his mouth like a good boy, gratefully hums around them and works his tongue between the knuckles, cleaning Hyungwon, eating him, eating his cum. When Hyungwon retrieves the wet fingers back, Changkyun licks his swollen lips, as if missing their weight on his tongue.

It’s comfortably silent between them. Hyungwon gives into love-stricken sentimentalities, admires his boyfriend with gentle wonder. He brings a clean hand to Changkyun’s cheek, caressing him, calming him. Changkyun looks up at him through the veil of his lashes. Hyungwon just realises that his hands are not on him anymore and are hiding behind the bed. 

So in a beat, he exhales, “Come here,” soft and low, beckoning Changkyun to come to him as his fingertips leave his face.

Hyungwon shuffles towards the sofa headrest, dick still out and wiggling for all the apostles to see, and Changkyun finally gets up, breathes out a quiet groan, frowns at his numb joints. The zipper of his jeans is already undone, but it does little to relieve the strain of his over-pending erection. He climbs on the bed, knees on both sides of Hyungwon’s hips, and starts breathing just a little harder when Hyungwon’s hands reach for his jeans.

“How do you want me?” Hyungwon asks, still mindful of the volume of his voice. 

“However you want,” Changkyun rasps out, voice impossibly low and rough and so, so damn hot. “Your hands, I’m good,” he doesn’t finish the sentence, probably isn’t capable of even thinking, so Hyungwon tries to hurry up and relieve his baby of the ache. 

Changkyun hisses as he tugs the jeans down and carefully pulls back the stained underwear. His erection falls heavy between his legs, flushed and dripping desperately. Hyungwon needs a second to take him in, to admire him, to label him pretty a hundred more times and memorise the shape of the cock he will fantasise about taking in his mouth. It just feels so good to be a relationship. 

But Changkyun can’t tolerate any more of his silent ponderings, so Hyungwon wraps his fingers around the shaft and tugs. His large hand allows him to swipe over the tip, causing Changkyun to hiss and bite on the inside of his lip. He smears the precome along the length, watches it glisten prettily and strokes, skilfully works his wrist to cover everything and drag a hoarse moan out of Changkyun.

“Fuck,” Changkyun exhales self-indulgently, biting on his lower lip harder. Hyungwon picks up at the pace, applies pressure to the heated organ and jerks off rhythmically. Changkyun plays with his nipples, hums and heaves at the quick sensations. When Hyungwon gets tired, he squeezes around the base and teases the tip with his thumb, hovers over the slit. He stares at Changkyun’s cock intently, waits for him to burst and release everything he’s got. And in all honesty – he just loves watching people cry from the pleasure he inflicts. 

Hyungwon speeds up again, strokes fast and short in tune to the other’s idle hums. Changkyun’s hips stutter, he flinches when it gets overwhelming, his thighs tense up and his spine curls. Hyungwon doesn’t resist a quiet moan of his own at the sight and gives his all, gives his best, all to make his baby cum good. 

When he does, it is in long white splatters all over Hyungwon’s chest and stomach. It settles on his skin like candle wax, hot but not unpleasant. Changkyun forces out his last moan and melts, sitting on Hyungwon’s thighs while trying to catch his breath. Hyungwon’s hand falls limp by the side. He doesn’t exactly want to use it for at least the next century, wants to lie in bed with his boyfriend in his arms and kiss his tattoo and his everything, but Changkyun’s eyes sparkle with another kind of want. 

Before it dries, Hyungwon gathers the cum from his tummy with his fingers, messes it between his knuckles, shows it off to Changkyun. 

Changkyun, in return, shows off how much of a good boy he is and opens his mouth before Hyungwon can even bring his hands to his face. His heart drops at such wholesome demonstration of inherent goodness. 

Changkyun licks Hyungwon’s fingers squeaky-clean, takes everything he feeds him, generously coats his digits in warm spit and then swallows around them as Hyungwon retreats them. If he is honest, he’s never seen anything hotter. Anything more gratifying. Anything more grateful. 

Hyungwon tries to settle on the headrest high enough to lead Changkyun into a gentle, stress-free kiss. He tastes himself and the other on his lips and tongue but kisses tighter to express his gratitude and sentiments. His heart is still fluttering in his chest, beating out a rhythm against his frail bones, not big enough to contain all the emotions he feels. Perhaps he needs to thrash, start a revolution and burn down a church to let it all out, to really let it all out. 

Just when he reaches for Changkyun’s face with his hands, fingers on his wrists stop him. Changkyun smiles subtly with the very corners of his mouth, as he always does. “Wash your hands first,” he says, already out of his headspace. 

Hyungwon just looks at him, stunned, enchanted, enamoured, probably dim-witted for anyone who never discovered what love feels like. 

“Thank you,” he mutters, and he means it. He will forever be thankful for Changkyun for responding to his feelings like that. Really, like that. 

Changkyun smiles wider now, amused. “You too,” he leans in and pecks Hyungwon on the lips, and then tucks himself back in his underwear and gets up. Hyungwon misses the warmth of his thighs on his. “Come on, my mouth tastes like a brothel.”

Hyungwon whines and flails his limbs, and Changkyun laughs and pinches him, fucking pinches him in the knackers and runs away snickering when Hyungwon wails in pain. Golden saints are the only witnesses to his post-orgasmic sufferings, but he feels pride imagining that the whole heaven and hell saw their sacred coition. 

His mind is still as blissfully silent even after Changkyun’s body detached from his. 

Changkyun generously offers a nap after they clean up and smoke. He puffs the pillows and spreads the blanket, closes the white transparent curtains to chase the gloomy afternoon sun (which does little to help) and climbs under the sheets in a new pair of sweats and with a phone in hand. Hyungwon joins him, coos at the sight of his boyfriend coddling himself in a fluffy blanket and nuzzles his size. The jeans are a little unpleasant on his skin but at least it’s warm, and Changkyun is warm too, and Hyungwon’s heart is warm as well. 

He isn’t too bothered to check his phone like the other guy, so he doesn’t mind when Changkyun turns on his side, back facing Hyungwon, and continues to give him the silent treatment. Hyungwon unceremoniously drapes his arm over Changkyun’s waist and melts into him, legs tangled and lips attached to the warm nape.

As one of the smaller hands comes to lazily hold Hyungwon’s fingers, Hyungwon kisses the handle of the dagger tattooed on Changkyun’s back. He gently caresses along the petals with his lips, down the blade and on the flowers all around it. Changkyun sighs softly, his phone drops on the bed with a muffled sound.

 _the one who wants to wear the crown  
bears the crown_, the writing on his shoulder says. 

Hyungwon smiles. “Serious about becoming the monarch of your own estate sometime then?” He asks and plants a kiss on the ‘crown’.

“Of course,” Changkyun replies and shuffles closer to Hyungwon’s front, takes his arm and wraps it tighter around himself.

“I’ll be your personal advisor then, help you conquer the world,” Hyungwon nuzzles as close as he can, and his hips connect with Changkyun’s little bum. “Or a valet, to groom you in the morning and wash your hair.”

“You’re gonna be a butler and do all of the above, along with greeting my very important guests, order alcohol and buy new stuff on Apple TV as soon as they come out,” Changkyun mumbles, voice heavily laced with sleep.

“But I’ll still help you around in the chamber, right? Read you a bedtime story, kiss you goodnight, all that shit?” Hyungwon rises and pecks the shell of Changkyun’s ear. He’s got great ears, big and pretty and with more piercings than Hyungwon can count.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry,” Changkyun murmurs, on the verge of falling asleep, and Hyungwon leaves him be. He should be the sleepy one, but he is too high on euphoria to let this moment go to waste. He shifts a little up on the bed, shoulders on the level with Changkyun’s head to push his other arm under his neck. He will probably scream later when he wakes up to a fully atrophied limb, but right now he can’t care less. He’s got Changkyun in his arms. 

The day soon flows into the late evening. The gloomy sun finally leaves and the beautiful black canvas of the night sky takes over, sprinkling rare stars there and there to keep the moon some company. It’s peacefully quiet, as if there is no one else in the world but the two of them.

Hyungwon doesn’t even immediately realise he’s been awoken because he feels too good for it to be real. When he opens his eyes, a little sticky and tired from the contact lenses, he takes in a surreal world before him – the dark room, seemingly the same one he fell asleep in, but strangely a little smaller than he remembers. The whole world decreases to what the tall church wax candles illuminate in delicate orange light. There are several all around the bed – a few by Hyungwon’s side, a few more by Changkyun’s side, and an incredible lot on the bookshelf with golden icons. The air smells of floral incense.

Add grains of myrrh sprawled all over the bed, and in this surreal universe Hyungwon might as well be newborn Jesus.

But Changkyun’s body is still lying next to him, so he’ll accept the current reality as true. The orange light covers his back in soft glow, tongues of little flames flicker in his cherry-coloured hair. He is a little further away than before, so Hyungwon assumes he is awake and shuffles closer, hugging him again.

Changkyun is indeed awake. He jerks slightly at the sudden touch as if he was brought back to earth from faraway daydreams. He is staring somewhere into the unknown, as if through the walls of his house, past the candlelight and saints and Anglican church. Fire dances self-indulgent waltz in his irises. 

Maybe, just maybe, there is a celestial choir singing about Changkyun’s angelic beauty somewhere in alternative heaven. 

Hyungwon kisses his nape. “You’re not asking for forgiveness of your lustful sins right now, are you?” Hyungwon mutters, still sleepy but cheeky and full of kisses he litters all over Changkyun’s back.

The other turns to him, blocking the access to his back. It doesn’t stop Hyungwon – he mindlessly continues kissing over his shoulder. “And what if I am?” Changkyun asks with a tiny smile. There is amusement in his voice, and his eyes twinkle feebly as the source of light remains behind him. 

Hyungwon pecks his shoulder bone. “I’ll smack you,” he jokes, sneaking his hand under the blanket to lie threateningly over Changkyun’s nipple.

Changkyun chuckles softly. “No, I was just thinking.”

“About?”

There is a moment of silence as Changkyun admires Hyungwon as he kisses his body with a pleased expression, a curl of a smile weaves permanently into the corners of his mouth, eyes closed, cheeks soft and rosy after sleep. Changkyun looks at him, probably fluttering on the inside at the sight of his magnificent boyfriend. Hyungwon prepares for a soft shy confession, gathers the most beautiful words to gift back to him. “What to get you for Christmas,” Changkyun deadpans, and Hyungwon’s eyes fly open with lightning speed.

He groans, turning over on his back. “You ruined the moment,” he says in exasperation, flailing his arms. Changkyun laughs like he just pulled the best prank ever. Maybe Jooheon was right about calling him a hyena.

“Why? Christmas is romantic,” Changkyun teases, and Hyungwon mimics crying noses, although, who knows, maybe he is about to sob for real. Changkyun laughs some more, melodic, gleeful and unfairly cute, and Hyungwon doesn’t have the strength to fight him.

He looks at him, catches him in the last moments of his careless joy. Admires the wrinkles under his eyes and around his mouth, mischievous twinkles in his irises, slight glow of his teeth and his puffed up cheeks. Hyungwon sighs. “When do you want me to leave?”

As much as he would loathe to go, he knows he has to before Changkyun’s parents come back. Changkyun pouts, either in thought or in sorrow. “Ideally in the next half an hour so I can clean before they’re back.”

Hyungwon sighs again with a little noise and stretches, arms thrown over his head. “Sad,” he chokes out before yawning, but makes no move to get out whatsoever.

Changkyun smiles at him and leans down to quickly kiss him on the lips. Hyungwon immediately stops fooling around and almost blushes. He is not used to being kissed first, he has to admit. 

“I’ll make you coffee or whatever you want if you get dressed in the next two minutes,” he says and hops out of bed, leaving Hyungwon alone in the dark for the second time that day. Hyungwon thinks that theoretically, if heaven is real, then his personal paradise would be lying down forever with Changkyun in his arms.

By the same logic, his personal hell would be Changkyun leaving him alone, over and over again, and with every goodbye smile Hyungwon would fall harder and harder until he can’t contain the feelings no more without expressing them in the feverish kisses. Which, according to the Devil’s design, he wouldn’t be able to.

So better hurry and kiss Changkyun while he can, Hyungwon thinks.

2 days before Christmas.

Hyungwon has been so high on euphoria that came with being with Changkyun that he forgot Christmas was coming. 

Somehow, he managed to focus on the good side of things and remember that December was coming to an end, and that in a month it will be his and Changkyun’s birthday, and they will spend them together, and they will have fun and do all the things couples do, like being disgustingly in love and sappy – but that only lasted two days until his friend from Public Speaking reminded him about their last open mic gig of the year.

For which Hyungwon did not prepare because he was busy being a boyfriend. 

Well, fuck it. It’s Christmas-themed, and Hyungwon loves talking about Christmas exactly because he loathes it so much, so he will find a delightful way to spend his allowed five minutes in the spotlight basking in general confusion and public offense coming his way. Not something he actually wants in life, but he only gets a month every year to pour out his piled up frustrations, so he will give it a go and be content about his life until the next Christmas. 

Changkyun promised to come too. Hyungwon has to do his very best to impress.

“I don’t like Christmas, I’m sure everyone around here already knows that by now,” Hyungwon starts. It’s a little hard without a script, without any messy notes to refer to, not a single bullet point jotted down on his clammy palm. Truthfully, he joined the society to help his mild case of anxiety-induced stuttering, but the crowd is full of unknown faces, and having nothing to rely on, he might as well start slurring words again. All those years of logical and consistent and persuasive journalist-talk, and he suddenly can’t sort his buzzing thoughts out. Too many ideas, too little tongues to express them all. But, well, all he can do is smile and remind himself of the fact that Christmas is literally a day after tomorrow.

The podium is his pulpit.

“I don’t actually have a valid reason for it, I don’t have a heartbreaking story about my dog dying on Christmas, or about my me giving my heart to someone and that someone returning my heart to me the very next day, or about spending the entire holiday in the hospital due to severe pneumonia – which did happen, actually, but I was a conscious teen and I was rather pleased about leaving all that celebratory chaos behind – poor nurses though, but anyways – so, no, I don’t have anything to back up my hatred with, but I do have reason and conscience that always push me to just hate something that everyone around me loves. Goodness, I hate the nativity play scenario. Oh, I just caught my train of thought, I know where I’m going with this speech now. Why is it that Christmas is supposed to celebrate the birth of a figure I don’t feel like naming – which is false, actually, and it’s a pagan holiday that was stripped of something authentic and turned into this Christian masquerade – same thing with Halloween, actually, but I love Halloween, but anyways. So, a stolen holiday. And not only is it now deeply rooted in religious observations, but it also somehow involves the absolute caricature of a folk legend in the form of Santa Claus? Like, what kind of dichotomy is that? On one hand we’ve got this godly child who wasn’t even actually born on the 25th of December, and then on the other hand we’ve got this guy. Santa Claus. Who’s got a beer belly and thinks he is some kind of judge that can separate children into good and bad. And please, don’t tell me I’m reading too deep into it, I am a person who overthinks everything to the point of psychosomatic insomnia and hypochondria, but, actually, I just have atopic dermatitis and love to read a lot. 

“Anyways, have you ever thought about how desecrated this oh so holy celebration has actually become since absolute global capitalism has taken over the world? I’d accept Christmas as a given if it was just a religious celebration that doesn’t concern me in any way, but, come on, look around – am I really supposed to give everyone I know a present just because… just because Santa Claus and the Three Kings have absolutely nothing in common? There is no correlation in anything concerning the symbolism of this celebration. And this frustrates me, just like Easter and everything else Christianity-related because I was raised that way – no, seriously, I was raised in the most calm and balanced household in the country, and December is probably the only thing that actually makes me go a little bonkers – anyways, Christmas. I don’t buy that. It’s dumb! And so I stand here and preach for the whole world to hear, that I think your pseudo-commemoration ceremonies are wack. Now, now, please don’t gasp, I’m repelling because I don’t believe in your invented Christian authority, some fictitious, ‘greater’ being that a human mind has ever conceived. You herd of brainwashed lunatics – excuse my language – believers – think roasting a turkey for dinner is their religious gratitude for the death of a ‘meek and mild’ son of God, but! It’s all a strategic game of capitalism to delude you into wasting money, think about it, you’re not giving––” And then Hyungwon spots Changkyun, casually walking out from around the corner, AirPods in, face relaxed and a little bored, fashion on point, gait languid and confident. Hyungwon can use a joke. “Oi, Changkyun! Hey, Changkyun, Changkyun, over here––What did you get me for Christmas?”

Changkyun jerks at the sudden noisy outburst of his name and finally sees Hyungwon behind the gloomy crowd. A few faces turn to look at him. A subtle little grin is already making its way along his lips as he takes out his AirPods and hides them in his pocket. Changkyun pretends to take a second to think, pouting before raising his palms up in the air and offering a polite smile, face innocent. “Myself?”

Hyungwon gulps, withholds a pause. Changkyun’s answer resonated loudly in the quietened hall. All eyes suddenly perk up to him again, anticipating what comes next. One foot already sliding off the improvised stage, Hyungwon awkwardly bends towards the mic. “I’ll be right back.”

He’s gone in a flash. The podium is empty. Hyungwon storms down the side of the sitting rows, ignoring any questioning looks, ignoring anything at all, and only focusing on the quirk of Changkyun’s thick eyebrow. He is amused, he is so amused, Hyungwon can see it in the curl of his lips and glint in his eyes and carelessly slumped back, and when he is close, all he does is stare down at him as if he’s never seen a human being before. There is a darkened patch of skin on the side of his neck, a collection of fading hickeys covered by a layer of foundation.

Hyungwon takes his hand in his, tightly interlocking their fingers, and storms off again, Changkyun tumbling behind him.

“Are you okay?” Changkyun asks, a subtle lilt in his voice. 

But Hyungwon knows it will make him look more mysterious and dramatic if he keeps quiet until they reach the disabled toilet, and once they do, Hyungwon shoves them inside and locks the door with lightning speed. Granted, the hall was empty. Hopefully it was empty. 

It doesn’t smell as bad as it could. Changkyun leans against the wall, already knowing Hyungwon’s every next move, and he grins, really grins when Hyungwon crosses the remaining two steps in a blink and captures him in a hold of his snakey arms around his waist.

Hyungwon kisses strongly from the start, feverish, hurried, as if over the twenty-four hours they spent apart he starved, starved for a kiss, a touch, a whisper, a glance. Changkyun brings his hands to his neck, pulls him into himself, responds just as ardently because this is exactly how he likes to make out, and bless Hyungwon for finally doing things his way. 

It takes a minute for things to get heated, but Hyungwon is blacked out, doesn’t notice the world around him, doesn’t realise where he is and who he is and why he is, it’s as if someone else is doing the job for him. As if it’s his muscular alter ego (that he’s been dreaming of becoming since he was a kid) that is grabbing Changkyun’s bum and encouraging him to jump up, which Changkyun does with no hesitation. Jumps up and circles his legs around Hyungwon’s waist, and Hyungwon has to really press him harder into the wall to hold his weight.

His dreamy alter ego may be able to commit such savageries, but his arms grow stiff in a hot minute. So when the slight ache finally registers in his head, he realises how cruel it must be of him to force Changkyun’s back into the hard wall of the public toilet. He detaches from Changkyun’s lips, awe distorting his features. 

And if Hyungwon wasn’t blushing before, he is definitely blushing now, an awkward laugh climbing up his throat. He gently lets Changkyun down. “I’m sorry,” Hyungwon smiles apologetically, and a shy giggle escapes his lips. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”

Changkyun smiles back at him. His head is resting against the plain white tiles, his face is raised up with some sort of challenge. “That was hot,” his hands slide up Hyungwon’s chest, stunning Hyungwon to the very core of his being. “Too bad you stopped.”

Hyungwon laughs awkwardly again. “Not in a public toilet, love. I’m sure there is a special place in hell reserved for people who fuck in the disabled toilet.”

Changkyun snorts, amused by Hyungwon’s change of demeanor, and looks around. “Alluring place.”

Hyungwon chuckles and leans in to smooch him on the lips one last time before going, but Changkyun grabs his forearms and forces him to stay a little longer. He looks up, eyes hazy with a kind of uncertainty, timidness and desire all at the same time. Like he needs just a couple more seconds to gather what he wants to say.

“My parents are doing service on Christmas Day, so they won’t be home for a couple of hours. Want to come over? I know you don’t like celebrating, but I thought it would be cool if I could at least give you something, I promise it’s nothing Santa related or––”

Hyungwon shushes him with a finger on his lips. Changkyun is confused at first, almost scared, as if waiting for rejection, but Hyungwon smiles in such a fond way that something in Changkyun’s eyes twinkles upon seeing it. “Of course,” he says and kisses Changkyun again. 

It’s now Changkyun’s turn to spread in an adorable mellow smile.

Christmas Day!

Perhaps Hyungwon has had a change of heart, a spiritual conversion, metanoia. 

He doesn’t feel like the same cynical millennial he once was when he rings Changkyun’s doorbell with a huge smile on his face and flowers in his hands. Changkyun actually told him that his mother was incredibly confused about the bouquet of roses on the table and he had to lie and tell her he bought them at uni plant sale. How Changkyun will explain this plush bouquet of camellias, Hyungwon isn’t too inclined to find out. 

It’s freezing cold, Christmas carols are playing all around, endless ‘Merry Christmas’s are heard from every corner of the town, messages keep flowing, even his bloody calendar is sending him a notification, but all Hyungwon does is smile and inhale the scent of beautific flowers once again. 

Maybe he is just as happy as any man who is about to get laid would be, but he likes to think of himself as someone above the simple principles of human psychology.

Changkyun opens the door with a huge radiant smile. “Merry Christmas!” Hyungwon doesn’t even manage to take him in as Changkyun jumps on him and engulfs him in a hug, planting a chaotic kiss on his cheek and squeezing him in his arms until Hyungwon can’t quite breathe. He smells of cinnamon and vanilla and tobacco and ‘Axe’ and some manly shampoo for men. Homely smell.

Hyungwon laughs as Changkyun lets go. “Merry Chrysler,” Hyungwon says in a funny voice and snorts obnoxiously loud, unable to keep a straight face at his ridiculously lame reference. 

Changkyun doesn’t even mind – he laughs, playfully slaps his arm and drags him inside. His mouth is frozen in a wide toothy smile. There are sparkles bouncing off his head. He is radiating pure, childish, Christmassy glee.

Hyungwon extends his bouquet of flowers. “Here.” Changkyun accepts the camellias and smiles like Hyungwon is a little endearing fool, like his antics of coming over to his boyfriend’s with a fresh bouquet will be a tradition until the end of time. 

“Thank you,” he smells them and gives a satisfying nod. Hyungwon finally has the chance to look at him as he takes off his coat. Changkyun’s hair is down this time, he is wearing sweats and a black Christmas hoodie that says ‘hoe-hoe-hoe’, and there are trees and gingerbread men and snowflakes on his socks. “Come on, let’s go, I’ve got something for you,” Changkyun grabs Hyungwon’s arm before he can even kick off his second shoe and rushes to the kitchen like a madman. 

He lays the flowers by the sink and hurries to the living room. “Wait here!” Changkyun shouts from the other room. Hyungwon is too disoriented with his little boyfriend running back and forth to really process what’s going on. Changkyun waddles back into the kitchen with a packet in his hands, green wrapper and red string and a little note attached to it. A classic present. “I won’t say the cursed words again, but here.”

Changkyun hands him the present and finally calms down. Or only seems to calm down. He watches Hyungwon like a hawk, his hands fidgeting just slightly by his side and one leg jiggling, as if he was in a hurry. He probably wants Hyungwon to open the present already.

So Hyungwon doesn’t hesitate any longer, puts the present on the table and tears the wrapper. What he finds inside is a black hoodie and a thick, very thick envelope. Hyungwon can only guess what’s inside. His ideal present has always been money – ‘buy yourself anything you want!’ – his grandma would say and send him thirty quid. He always collects these delicate presents from his parents and friends and towards the end of the day, he manages to harvest about a hundred pounds to waste on a night-out with his mates. Lovely thing, money. 

The hoodie says _tis the season to get shitfaced_ with a few Christmassy alcoholic beverages spilled between the words, and Hyungwon grimaces in a silent cackle. Changkyun giggles somewhere next to him while Hyungwon shudders in a fit of speechless laughter. “I l-love it,” he wheezes. 

“Look, look,” Changkyun points at the torn wrapper, and Hyungwon hardly tries to calm down and looks inside. There is a massive red t-shirt that says _Jesus didn’t die for you, hoe_ , and Hyungwon kind of loses it. He will give all his future speeches exclusively in this t-shirt.

“What’s in here?” He chokes out after another cackle and picks up the envelope. He gets out a Christmas card. _Tradition dictates that I give you a Christmas card on this day_ , it says. It’s empty inside. Then he gets out a second card, All I want for Christmas is money, bitch, and it’s also empty. Then Hyungwon realises that Changkyun got him a whole collection of offensive Christmas cards as he gets out the third one, _dear santa, i’m writing to tell you that i’ve been naughty and it was worth it. you fat, judgemental bastard_ , and Hyungwon laughs again, slapping the table with his fit. When he reaches for the next one, Changkyun taps his wrist.

“There’s time for that later,” he says and takes the envelope away. Hyungwon has a déjà vu, but ignores it for the sake of leaning in and giving Changkyun a smooch. 

He kisses him gently, in gratitude, because he loves people who make him laugh and he loves Changkyun twice as much, and inconspicuously reaches into the pocket of his blazer. When they separate, there is a small velvet box in Changkyun’s hands. 

Changkyun looks up at him in puppy confusion. “You got me a present?” He asks with genuine wonder, eyes big and sparkly, and Hyungwon wants to kiss him for the rest of his life and longer. He smiles, nodding on the box. 

Changkyun bites on his lower lip in anticipation and opens the gift. What he finds inside is a pretty delicate necklace with an eight-angled star pendant made of white gold, like Polaris. At the heart of the star is a small diamond. Changkyun’s mouth falls open. 

“Hyungwon,” he exhales, at a loss of words. It’s a small thing, bought on Hyungwon’s remaining money from the paid internship he did last year, but it’s a star, and Changkyun loves stars, and Hyungwon loves it when Changkyun looks at things he loves.

He takes the box out of the other’s hands and removes the necklace. Changkyun turns around. Hyungwon undoes the clasp and carefully puts the pendant around his neck. It doesn’t shine as prettily in the yellowish light of the kitchen, but it does make Changkyun’s eyes twinkle in full constellations.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, looking down at the necklace. “It’s really pretty.”

Hyungwon sighs, a fool in love. Changkyun glances up at him again and that’s all it takes for the curl of amusement to change his expression. He takes Hyungwon’s hands in his and rises on his tiptoes.

“My turn,” he breathes out into his lips. 

Hyungwon’s eyes grow wide like platters. “A what?”

But Changkyun is already dragging him to his bedroom. 

When the door shuts behind them, the air grows visibly tense. Viscous, sticky. Like a lava lamp, like a slime, like caramel syrup boiling on the hob and candy floss stuck between fingers. Hyungwon knows where this is leading, knew from the very moment Changkyun asked him to come over, but he still inhales sharply in amazement when Changkyun kisses him that way, in a way that makes the hairs on his arm stand up and his stomach twist. Changkyun’s fingers in his hair, tongue tangling with his, breaths intermingling, legs stumbling towards the bed and hearts drumming against each other in a bass duet.

Changkyun sits Hyungwon on the sofa-bed, hasty hands grabbing at his locks, and under his jaw, and tugging on his shoulder pads, and scratching his thighs. Changkyun shows with everything he’s got how much he wants – needs – Hyungwon to take off his clothes, take them off now and preferably do it fast.

So Hyungwon complies because there is no reason for him not to; all his conscience has long melted into a pile of thoughtless goo the second Changkyun laid his mouth on his. They rip his blazer off together and pull his shirt over his head, and in a blink Changkyun’s hands are on his body, appreciating him blindly but with care.

Hyungwon knows they have less than two hours to… do whatever boyfriends do, but Changkyun’s careless hurry still catches him off guard, surprised to see him without his languid stance and dreamy gazes. Changkyun looks wanton, like he wants to eat Hyungwon alive, carefully peel his layers one by one and ravish him until he is nothing but a useless mass of flesh and bones. Hyungwon doesn’t always get looked at that way. Especially by Changkyun who prefers subtlety and wordless touches to open expressions of affection.

Changkyun’s hand idly brushes past his crotch, causing Hyungwon to jerk, and only then he stops. Stabilises his breathing. Straightens and looks down at Hyungwon as if he is about to ruin his man’s whole life. 

He nods somewhere behind him. “Move back,” Changkyun says lowly and waits for Hyungwon to process his words with a hard glare. When he finally does, Hyungwon shudders awake and scrambles towards the headrest, an awkward caterpillar rustling the sheets under the looming shadow of a predator. Well, Changkyun is in no way dangerous, but he surely looks like he’s about to pounce Hyungwon if he blinks at him with his big cartoon eyes one more time.

But diagonal to all Hyungwon’s expectations, Changkyun doesn’t climb onto the bed to fiercely grind against him. Instead, he slips his hands under his hoodie, undoes the strings of his sweats and easily slides them off his legs. From what Hyungwon can see of his mid-thigh, he went commando. Hyungwon was unwrapping his Christmas gift while his boyfriend stood next to him in just his sweats and hoodie. Just that. And he dared to smile so sweetly at him and give him the softest kisses of thanks, all while planning to bang him on the bed like an animal. 

Only after getting over his initial shock, Hyungwon then notices that there is something wrapped around his thigh, something red and silky, with a messy knot on the side. Changkyun’s hand sneaks into the pocket of his hoodie and crawls out just as fast after probably taking something out of it. 

“I just thought,” Changkyun suddenly says, voice deep and raspy like he always makes it when he is about to say something cool. His hands grip the hem of his hoodie, “that since my present wasn’t that big,” he slides the piece of clothing up his torso, and the more skin is revealed, the more Hyungwon’s heartbeat picks up as he finally realises what the red and silky thing actually is. Changkyun throws the hoodie over his head and stands in front of Hyungwon fully bare, hard and impossibly – excuse Hyungwon’s lexicon – fuckable. “I just thought that I should be your real Christmas present.”

A red silky ribbon is stretching over his body from his shoulder to his thigh. A pretty little bow is tied in the area of his chest. Hyungwon swallows the thickest stream of saliva, his mouth suddenly growing dry at the sight before him. He almost squirms from the very core of his being, tongues of arousal licking down his stomach to the very tip, and he is so, so stiff.

Then Changkyun climbs onto the bed, one hand still clenched in a fist. Hyungwon is having a hard time breathing, and he feels lightheaded when Changkyun straddles his thighs, naked and proud and with the little star pendant shining in the dip between his collarbones.

Leaning in closer to Hyungwon’s face, Changkyun opens his hand and quickly takes whatever was in his palm into the other. His gaze is strangely adoring when he presses something soft under Hyungwon’s chin, slides it over his cheeks and lingers a bit in his hair. Changkyun smiles, a bit snakey, a bit fond, a bit amused. “And you can be my Christmas present.”

He wrapped a ribbon around Hyungwon’s face and tied a bow on the top of his head. Hyungwon stares at Changkyun with awful wonder. “You are kind of unreal,” he mutters and then huffs out a silent laugh. Oh, to be a present to the one you love.

Changkyun’s hands are on his cheeks and his lips are on his again, this time tender, sentimental, affectionate. Hyungwon explores him anew, caresses down his back and his backside, grips his thighs, touches his waist, feels where his spine curves as he gently starts swaying his hips on him.

And then all the time and space in the world cease to exist. 

They rid Hyungwon of his jeans and underwear, and they unite, tighter than before, hotter than ever, with Hyungwon’s hands working over both of them with desperate urge and controversial desire to make it last. It’s Changkyun who paints crimson roses on Hyungwon’s neck this time as Hyungwon feels him with the tips of his slicked fingers, trembling with breathless incredulity as he finally touches Changkyun between his cheeks, works him open and learns his most intimate side, where he is sensitive and where he wants it and how, filling with more love and gratitude as he fills the other with himself. 

Dews of swear gather on his forehead, and Changkyun kisses him and exhales words of idle desires and praises into his mouth, asking scratches on his shoulders and hitched hums in his throat at every sensation Hyungwon inflicts. And then Hyungwon finally obliges and takes Changkyun, lowers him on himself and holds back a cry of wonder, of pleasure, as he holds him closer and tighter and safer. 

And Hyungwon finds himself to be a believer again, prays for relief when Changkyun moves and gifts him his everything, his warmth and trust and want to make him feel good too. And his head is blissfully silent, stuck in a loop of religious mantra of Changkyun’s name. What they make of slaps of damp skin, restrained cries and marking touches is love, Hyungwon calls it love, a coition of souls despite what the world calls a bodily distraction. 

He touches Changkyun quick and stable, strives to make him cry with overwhelming pleasure, and Changkyun does the same in their unified rhythm, captures Hyungwon inside to make him feel overwordly good. 

“You know,” Hyungwon breathes out, mind bordering on the edge of delirium and forcing his tongue to burn with senseless words. “I may be anti-Christ, but you, you are the real Antichrist.” Changkyun exhales in a silent exhausted chuckle, and they both speed up.

And then it’s a squall, and Changkyun tenses, shudders, lets go and comes, burning Hyungwon’s skin with his release. All it takes Hyungwon is a gasp and one last push to orgasm after him, he brings Changkyun close-close-close and holds him in his arms as they ride it out together, always together, now and forevermore. 

The ribbon around his head has long slipped to loosely hug his neck, and as Changkyun slumps on his lap, his body melts between the silky chains of his own. Hyungwon smiles as he kisses him, whispering mindless thank you’s into his skin, praising his present with genuine gratitude he’s been saving up for the past life. His best Christmas present. 

“Merry Christmas,” Changkyun whispers into his mouth again, smiling like he knows he changed Hyungwon’s entire world.

Maybe December will be the month that will hopefully signify every next anniversary with his boyfriend, maybe he will start looking at Christmas displays just a tiny bit closer to find something for Changkyun if it is just to make him happy, maybe he will finally have a reason to remember every next Christmas Day, and maybe he will be just a little more tolerating about this pseudo-commemoration, all as long as he’s got his soul-soothing cure right in his arms.

The golden icons in the corner are the only witnesses to their own sacred celebration.

**Author's Note:**

> just a side note they did use condoms in the end scene okay i just didnt mention it (just like a mysterious appearance of lube) bc it would ruin the f~l~o~w or wtv okay pls stay protected
> 
> hope you enjoyed!!! any nice feedback is welcome :3 hmu on twt @chaeleggiewon!!


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